THE Fraudsters on TV3

I got invited to have a chat about fraud on TV3's morning Show with Sybil Mulcahy and Martin King. Watch it here (on the TV3 Catch Up player) and count the shameless plugs...

BBC 5 on Guzman-Betancourt

Donal MacInytre ran a short piece (eight minutes) on his BBC 5 radio show last night about Juan Carlos Guzman-Betancourt. Discussing the con-artist and the inner working of his mind were Detective Sergeant Andy Swindells and myself. Have a listen...

SUCKER lists

Anyone who has fallen victim to an email or a snail-mail con are likely to feature on so-called 'sucker-lists.' Fraudsters sell and swap these lists when targeting people in various scams. The Serious Organised Crime Agency in the UK recently warned that hundreds of thousands of people could be on the lists and that there appears to be an upsurge in the scams. Once a person replies they get more and more letters some of which are dressed up as legal documents. Read here about one scam broken up by SOCA last April that could have netted €35 million for the fraudsters.

RATHKEALE and fraud

The County Limerick village of Rathkeale made headlines recently after the image of the Virgin Mary was seen in the stump of a felled tree. It is a bit of good news for the little village in rural Ireland which is also the spiritual home to some of Ireland's most prolific fraudsters. This time last year members of the 'Bishop' O'Brien clan from Rathkeale were selling dodgy generators all over Australia (read it here). Fair trade officials there called it one the biggest and well-organised scams of its type. Another of Rathkeale's traveller-trader sons in Michael 'Levan' Slattery who is the subject of legal action by an antiques dealer in Baltimore, Maryland. Read the full story here about 'Levan'. Apparently the far-flung Irish traveller-traders and the fraudsters amongst them are promising to make a pilgrimage back home.

TALK radio

One of Ireland's newest stations, 4FM, which broadcasts in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Clare and Galway had me on to talk about fraud and the blog. Have a listen and you'll know why I'm a print journalist. Sorry about the quality.

NOT so dirty sexy money

It's a million miles away from Catch Me If You Can. There were a few cases in Dublin last week that highlighted the mundane, boring, dull reality of most frauds. They also showed that for most companies the biggest risk of fraud comes from within. Remanded for sentencing was pay roll manager Joseph Sullivan, who admitted transferring €36,000 to his own bank account. The dad-of-one, worked for an investment company. He was caught after he left a bank transfer order with authorising signatures taped to the bottom on the office photocopier. Sullivan took the money because he owed €50,000 as a result of his gambling addiction.
Then there was the mother of seven children, overwhelmed by debts who took €9,000 from her employer and blew €10,000 from an anonymous benefactor touched by her plight. Joan Sloan made a number of internet banking transactions when she was under serious financial pressure. She got a three-year suspended sentence and 150 hours of community service.
Another gambling addict Harry Henry pulled off the old rent deposit scam on five different people by pretending to be the landlord of his own apartment while sleeping rough. The former sports teacher, described as a chronic gambler, confessed on the day his victims were due to collect the keys. He got a three-year suspended sentence.

WELFARE Fraud

THE Irish government is getting tough about handing out welfare cash. A fraud investigation during March in which 2,700 claims were checked, resulted in 275 claims being suspended - saving up to €3 million. In 2008 the government saved €476 million on fraudulent claims below the projected €536 million. The shortfall was blamed on staff being re-directed to cope with the surge in claims as the recession hit home and people lost their jobs. Deemed 'high-risk' were claims made by foreign nationals living in Ireland. Photo ID is now necessary when collected welfare payments.

Most fraudulent claims turn out to be individuals continuing to collect cash to which they lost their entitlement. It would naive in the extreme, however, to think that organised crime gangs don't target welfare systems. One of the biggest dole-fraud operations was carried out in the UK by a family of Irish travellers. Based near Bristol, the Maughans and others, spent more than a year cashing forged welfare checks. It took a nine-month investigation to track them down by which time they had stolen st£500,000. Last year Patrick Maughan was ordered to pay back nearly st£300,000 after serving his four year jail sentence.

JAIL the bankers

The president of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors brought up the thorny subject of why no-one from the Irish banking sector is facing a criminal investigation. Speaking at the association's annual conference Paschal Feeney said that the government should consult with the Garda Fraud Bureau and the Criminal Assets Bureau to see if legislation needs to be toughened up to let the detectives do their job. Feeney rightly complained that with the current promotion and recruitment freeze along with other cutbacks, officers will have even less resources to carry out investigations. Compared the United States and the UK, Irish authorities have been very slow to go after those responsible in even the most obvious cases of wrong doing. The public will is there to track down fraudsters but the political will is still lacking.