Four charged in connection with international money laundering probe [September 8, 2025]
1.  Summary
i.  Four people in central Dublin have been charged with money laundering involving proceeds of crime, in amounts ranging from around €29,000 upwards.

ii.  The investigation is being carried out by An Garda Síochána’s GNECB (Garda National Economic Crime Bureau) under organised crime legislation.

iii.  The alleged laundering involved use of bank accounts in Poland and Norway; there were large cash withdrawals from ATMs in Dublin and Cork over a period (11 August - 9 September 2025).

iv.  Items seized include cash, bank cards, false identification documents, and mobile phones.

1. What’s interesting

i.  Cross-border aspect & foreign-linked accounts: The use of accounts in Poland and Norway signals risk in international channels. Monitoring & due diligence must consider non-domestic account behavior, especially when funds are being transferred or accessed from multiple jurisdictions.


ii.  ATM cash withdrawal patterns as red flags: Repeated, large withdrawals via ATMs in different locations (Dublin & Cork), often a sign of layering or attempt to extract physical cash; good reminder to ensure outbound cash flow monitoring is strong (not just deposits).


iii.  False identities & multiple devices: Use of false IDs, multiple bank cards, mobile phones suggests efforts to obscure identity, complicate tracing. Reinforces the importance of strong identity verification (KYC), device monitoring if relevant, and forensic recordkeeping.


iv.  Regulatory / legal tools in play: Use of organised crime and criminal justice legislation (Sections under Irish law) shows that law enforcement is using serious legal powers. For compliance programs, this implies that suspicious activity reports (SARs) etc. must be airtight; any lapses could lead to legal/regulatory exposure.

Source: ​www.rte.ie/news/2025/0908/1532433-money-laundering/

Overall fraud offences have increased by 73% in the first six months of this year compared to the same period in 2024, according to provisional crime statistics from An Garda Síochána.

The garda figures are subject to change, with official statistics published by the Central Statistics Office on a quarterly basis.

The statistics show significant increases across most forms of fraud, with the biggest rise recorded in forgery or false instruments, which rose by 200% between January to the end of June 2025 compared to the same time last year.
An Garda Síochána said "deception or other" rose by 178%, shopping or online auction fraud was up 166% and money laundering increased by 82%.

Reports of "bogus tradesmen" had a 57% increase during this time compared to previous statistics for this period, while fraud relating to accommodation rose by 22% and so-called "account takeover fraud" rose by 18%.

​However, gardaí said other forms of fraud decreased, including a drop of 88% in reports of counterfeit notes and coins.
Instances of phishing, vishing and smishing reduced by 26% - such crimes are usually carried out online, via a phone call or text message.

Insurance fraud also dropped by 45%, the figures showed.

Information and statistics on other crimes are also reported. See source link below.

​Source: https://www.rte.ie/news/crime/2025/0818/1528888-garda-provisional-crime-figures/

The Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) is running several probes into suspected property frauds, Detective Inspector Michael Cryan told the Sunday Independent.

This type of fraud came to prominence in June when a solicitor and a former millionaire were jailed for using fake deeds to register new owners of two Dublin houses.

Det Insp Cryan said lawyers, accountants, investment advisers and company formation advisers, who are complicit through negligence or dishonesty, are increasingly being targeted in crime investigations.
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“The GNECB continues to target the professionals and professional enablers who commit so called white-collar crime for their own benefit or the benefit of others,” he said.

“These can be solicitors, accountants and/or trusted local businesspeople. This is important as their actions erode public trust in the legal and business world. Property re-registration fraud can only work with the involvement of solicitors who use their trusted legal positions to help commit these frauds.
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“We have other investigations ongoing into property fraud as well,” added Det Insp Cryan, who said this type of fraud is a “relatively new” one, first surfacing in the last decade.

In June, Herbert Kilcline (63), a former ­solicitor, of Bessborough Parade, Rathmines, ­Dublin, and Philip Marley (53), of ­Ashtown, Dublin, were convicted in connection with using false deeds to change the registered ownership of the properties without the owners’ knowledge.

Det Insp Cryan said this case highlights the role of professionals who help oil the wheels of criminality, known in the policing world as “professional enablers”.

“A solicitor’s signature carries a lot of weight,” he said.

One of those properties, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard, was rented in Phibsborough, with a lease income of €245,000 transferred to the US by Marley and never recovered.

The other was a boarded-up Victorian house on St Mary’s Road in Dublin that had been repossessed by a financial institution.

The fraud came to light when the St Mary’s Road property appeared on the Property Price Register in 2018 as sold to a company for €525,000, and the sale was challenged. The house has since been sold legitimately for €1.6m.

Marley, helped by Kilcline, used false deeds to register two companies as the owners of the two properties.
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Kilcline, who is no longer a practising solicitor, was jailed for two-and-a-half years, and Marley was jailed for three years.

While Marley was identified by the sentencing judge as the “orchestrator” of the fraud, Kilcline played a key role.
Without Kilcline’s professional lawyer’s signature passing off fake conveyancing deeds as genuine, the scheme would not have worked, according to Det Insp Cryan.

“That property registration fraud would not have worked without a solicitor’s involvement in it,” he said.
Kilcline is not the only ­professional who has crossed the line between advising clients and actively helping them to break the law for criminal gain, but he is one of the few to be prosecuted for doing so.

Cases that have been investigated by the GNECB include a solicitor who was probed for his continued representation of various members of a family notorious for making bogus insurance claims. He has not been prosecuted.
And most solicitors who have received prison sentences in recent years were found to have stolen from client funds or from institutions, for personal gain.

Michael Lynn (57) was jailed last year for five-and-a-half years for a €27m mortgage fraud which he used to fund his property investments.
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Fellow former solicitor Thomas Byrne (59) was convicted in 2013 of stealing €52m from six banks and defrauding 13 clients of their houses or money.

Kilcline was in a different category as a classic “professional enabler” who rubbed shoulders with criminals, personally and professionally.

The solicitor first came to Det Insp Cryan’s attention when he was leading the investigation into the murder of teenager Marioara Rostas.

Just 18 years old, Ms Rostas was begging with her brother on Lombard Street in Dublin city centre when she went missing. Her body was later found in the Dublin mountains.

Gangland criminal Alan Wilson was a suspect. Kilcline knew Wilson’s associates and was one of several people arrested in connection with possessing or withholding information.

Kilcline later claimed to the Sunday World that he convinced one of Wilson’s associates to testify against him, and bring gardaí to the site where Marioara was buried. Despite Fergus O’Hanlon’s testimony, Wilson was acquitted by a jury in 2014.

Kilcline later claimed that, as a result, his life was in danger from Wilson.

Marley was among Kilcline’s more respectable clients. From north Dublin, he was flamboyant and, at one time, a wealthy businessman.
​
He ran a male striptease act called Celtic Knights in the 1990s, before making €10m aged 33 from his student accommodation business, Ely Property Group. He was romantically involved with reality TV star Dana Wilkey, of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. His property group was liquidated in 2013, and he went bankrupt, owing €6.6m, in 2019.

​In the intervening years, Marley teamed up with Kilcline. Marley was promoting a US company that planned on taking over abandoned and derelict properties in Ireland, doing them up, and asserting squatters’ rights to claim ownership after 12 years. Kilcline was his legal adviser.
​
Marley and Kilcline went from that to property registration fraud, which they engaged in between 2016 and 2018.
At one point, Marley wrote to the Property Registration Authority, under a false name, pretending to be an employee of Kilcline.

Sentencing Marley, the judge called him the “author” of the scheme that was motivated by personal gain. Professionals had been “duped” and ended up being investigated as a result of his actions, Judge Sinéad Ní Chúlacháin said.

But she rejected Kilcline’s argument that he was guilty of “professional negligence” rather than criminality.

It seemed Kilcline’s troubles came all at once. As he was being probed for the property fraud, he was convicted of social welfare fraud, falsely claiming disability and other payments worth €127,000.

He was sentenced to 21 months in jail. Kilcline, who was impacted by thalidomide – the morning-sickness drug that caused birth defects in thousands of babies born worldwide in the 1950s and 1960s – blamed the fraud on his difficulty in accessing compensation.

Kilcline’s lawyers told the court that he had been a “covert human intelligence source” for gardaí, his life had been threatened, and gardaí uncovered “two separate conspiracies to murder him”.

A spokesperson for Tailte Éireann, a state agency responsible for property registrations, said it cannot comment on any active investigation.

“We actively assist An Garda Síochána with any requests received. Tailte Éireann has a dedicated counter-fraud unit that seeks ways to combat property fraud,” the statement said.

“One such initiative is Property Alert. This is a free service that provides an early notification, by email and/or text message, of certain activity on a property that you are monitoring. This allows you to take prompt action if you believe the activity is unexpected.”

Source: ​https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/crime/gardai-home-in-on-lawyers-and-accountants-involved-in-suspected-property-fraud/a505807651.html

The money laundering trial of former Ireland hockey international Caitriona Carey is expected to last four to six weeks and will go ahead in January 2027 before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
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The 47-year-old, with an address at Rochford Manor, Graiguecullen, Co Carlow, is charged with three offences contrary to Section 7 of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act 2010, one over a 12-month period in 2019, one in 2020 and one in 2021.

Source: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/money-laundering-trial-of-former-hockey-star-caitriona-carey-set-for-2027-1778715.html

Thousands of teenagers in Ireland have been targeted by one of the world’s most violent cyber crime gangs, we can reveal.
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A special investigation by The Irish Sun today tells how young people — aged between 17 and 22 — have been used by the Black Axe crime gang as part of their efforts to launder €84million through Irish banks.

Those in the sights of the mob include people with addiction issues, individuals who are homeless and those who come from broken homes.

But others include those who have to pay off drug debts, the children of millionaires and top students.
They have blackmailed kids to act as money mules after obtaining intimate images of their targets.
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The online criminals — classified as ‘master manipulators’ by Gardai — use the “social engineering” tactic by sending a message on a social media app offering their target the chance to earn €500.


Source: https://www.thesun.ie/news/15306774/cyber-crime-gang-thugs-money-garda-arrest/

​Thank you to our money laundering typology guest contributor who is a senior AFC professional working in Ireland on international financial crime matters.  This person freely gives time to source interesting typologies and analyses them for our visitors. Contact us if you would like to do likewise, whether anonymous or credited.

Bank kept lending to Lynn years after staff raised alarm about solicitor

Summary

• i. Michael Lynn, a former solicitor, is accused of defrauding multiple banks of approximately €27 million by obtaining multiple mortgages on the same properties without the banks' knowledge.
• ii. The trial, which began in January 2025, is expected to last several weeks, with the prosecution presenting evidence of the alleged fraudulent activities.
• iii. Lynn has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his defence team argues that the banks were aware of the multiple mortgages and that the loans were part of legitimate business transactions.

What’s interesting
i. The case of Michael Lynn presents several points of interest for AML professionals:

1. Exploitation of Lending Practices: The alleged ability to secure multiple mortgages on the same properties highlights potential weaknesses in due diligence and information-sharing practices among financial institutions. AML professionals can draw lessons on the importance of robust interbank communication and verification mechanisms.
2. Risk of Professional Misconduct: Lynn’s position as a solicitor allegedly provided him with the knowledge and means to orchestrate these transactions. This underscores the heightened AML risks associated with professionals in positions of trust and the need for enhanced scrutiny of such individuals.
3. Lack of Robust Controls: The case demonstrates how insufficient or fragmented oversight across institutions can enable large-scale fraud. AML professionals should focus on improving monitoring frameworks to detect anomalies, such as unusual property or mortgage activity, across institutions.

ii. This case is a reminder of the critical role of strong AML and fraud detection systems in protecting financial institutions from high-risk schemes involving trusted professionals.


Source: https://extra.ie/2025/01/05/news/irish-news/bank-lending-michael-lynn

Former Ireland hockey player Catriona Carey to face trial on money laundering charges 

Summary

i. Former Irish hockey player Catriona Carey faces 13 charges, including money laundering, theft, and deception, following an investigation into alleged financial crimes.
ii. The charges are connected to a scheme where Carey purportedly offered financial services, falsely claiming to assist individuals in mortgage arrears by securing new loans.
iii. Victims reportedly transferred significant sums to Carey’s company but did not receive the promised services, with the funds instead allegedly diverted for personal use.
iv. Carey appeared in Kilkenny District Court, where she was formally charged, and bail conditions were set, requiring her to sign weekly at a local Garda station.
v. The case has drawn significant attention due to Carey’s profile and the impact on victims, highlighting concerns about financial fraud and enforcement in Ireland.

What’s interesting
i. The case of Catriona Carey is notable for AML professionals due to several key aspects:

1. Misuse of Legitimate Business Structures: Carey’s alleged fraudulent scheme involved the use of a registered financial services company, highlighting how legitimate entities can be exploited for illicit purposes.
2. Money Laundering Implications: The charges include money laundering, which underscores the need for robust systems to detect unusual transaction patterns, even within businesses claiming to provide financial aid.
3. Victim Exploitation: The scheme targeted financially vulnerable individuals, emphasizing the importance of monitoring industries that serve high-risk or distressed customer bases.
4. Detection and Enforcement: The case demonstrates the role of law enforcement and public scrutiny in uncovering such schemes, pointing to gaps in early detection by financial institutions and regulators.
5. Reputational Risk: High-profile individuals involved in financial crime can attract significant public and media attention, reinforcing the need for effective due diligence processes, especially for politically exposed persons (PEPs) and other high-risk categories.

Source: https://www.thejournal.ie/catriona-carey-money-laundering-charges-6562783-Dec2024/

Women charged over money laundering, luxury handbags

Summary
i. A 33-year-old woman appeared in Dún Laoghaire District Court, charged with money laundering offenses involving the handling of cash and luxury handbags.
ii. The charges stem from an investigation into the alleged laundering of proceeds from criminal activities, where high-value items were used to conceal illicit funds.
iii. The court proceedings are part of a broader effort by authorities to combat money laundering and the use of luxury goods to disguise the origins of illegal money.

What’s interesting
i. The most notable or interesting points for AML professionals from this article are:

1. Use of Luxury Goods for Money Laundering: The case highlights the growing trend of using high-value items, such as luxury handbags, to conceal and launder illicit funds. This reinforces the need for enhanced vigilance in monitoring the purchase, sale, and trade of high-value consumer goods.
2. Investigative Focus on Cash Handling: The investigation is centered on the handling of cash, which suggests that physical currency remains a key medium for money laundering despite the rise of digital transactions. This may require further scrutiny of cash-based activities and the potential for layering operations.
3. Increased Scrutiny of Lifestyle Indicators: Authorities are increasingly focusing on the lifestyle of individuals involved in suspected money laundering, using luxury goods as indicators of potential illicit wealth. This reinforces the importance of monitoring financial and asset acquisition patterns in AML compliance programs.
4. Coordination Between Authorities: The case underscores how law enforcement and regulatory bodies are cooperating in tackling money laundering schemes, which may involve cross-jurisdictional efforts and multi-agency collaboration. This could imply the need for enhanced reporting mechanisms and international coordination in AML practices.
5. Rising Trends in Complex Laundering Methods: This case is an example of a complex money laundering method where illicit funds are disguised through the acquisition of luxury goods, signalling a shift toward more sophisticated laundering techniques that may require advanced detection systems.

Source: https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2024/1127/1483364-women-charged-over-money-laundering-luxury-handbags/

Man stands trial in Tralee accused of money laundering over €90,000

1. Summary

• i. A man in Tralee is standing trial for 17 counts of money laundering involving over €90,000. The charges stem from payments linked to proceeds of invoice redirect fraud—a scheme where fraudsters alter bank account details on invoices, redirecting funds to unauthorized accounts.
• ii. While the individual is not accused of committing the invoice fraud, the money allegedly flowed into his accounts at Ulster Bank, AIB, and Bank of Ireland. The prosecution claims he was either aware of or reckless regarding the illicit origins of the funds.
• iii. The suspect has testified that he was unaware of the fraudulent nature of the funds and that he allowed his cousin from war-torn Cameroon access to his bank accounts, purportedly to help them. The trial involved a detailed examination of banking transactions, emphasizing how financial institutions and law enforcement track suspicious activities and obtain account access via court orders

2. What’s interesting
i. This case serves as a reminder for financial crime professionals to remain vigilant about emerging fraud typologies and maintain strong frameworks for detecting and reporting suspicious activities.
ii. Some key takeaways:

• Invoice Redirect Fraud: This case highlights the risks of fraudulent schemes exploiting invoice payments—a common threat vector in corporate finance.
• Account Monitoring: The use of multiple bank accounts underscores the importance of monitoring unusual patterns across institutions.
• KYC and Beneficial Ownership: The defendant's claim of aiding a relative points to the critical need for robust KYC protocols to uncover indirect beneficiaries of account activity.
• Judicial Collaboration: The use of court orders to access financial records exemplifies the importance of collaboration between banks and law enforcement.

Source: https://www.radiokerry.ie/news/man-stands-trial-in-tralee-accused-of-money-laundering-over-e90000-2-408994

​Thank you to our money laundering typology guest contributor who is a senior AFC professional working in Ireland on international financial crime matters.  This person freely gives time to source interesting typologies and analyses them for our visitors. Contact us if you would like to do likewise, whether anonymous or credited. 

​Man jailed for a year for recruiting money launderers

1. Summary

• i. A man in Louth was jailed for one year for recruiting individuals as money mules to facilitate money laundering activities, linking to organized crime.
• ii. The individual coordinated with an international network, exploiting bank accounts to launder criminal proceeds. Victims were misled into fraudulent schemes, such as fake online sales.
• iii. The judge highlighted the increasing sophistication of such crimes and imposed the sentence to serve as a deterrent. The individual's role was considered more severe than that of a typical money mule due to his active recruitment efforts.

2. What’s interesting:

i. For AML professionals, the case offers several critical lessons:

1. Money Mule Recruitment: The individual actively recruited others to act as money mules, highlighting the need for financial institutions to monitor patterns indicative of mule account activities. Organized networks often exploit vulnerable individuals, increasing the complexity of detection.
2. Organized Crime Links: The connection to international criminal organizations (e.g., "The Black Axe") underlines the importance of cross-border information sharing and collaboration in identifying and dismantling such networks. Enhanced due diligence and transaction monitoring are crucial in combating such schemes.
3. Account Misuse and Fraud Typologies: Exploitation of personal bank accounts for laundering highlights gaps that institutions must address, such as better KYC measures and real-time anomaly detection. Monitoring for atypical transaction flows and the misuse of accounts by third parties is essential.
4. Judicial and Enforcement Focus: The sentencing emphasized deterrence, showing regulatory and legal systems are taking an increasingly serious stance on participation in financial crimes, even for lower-tier actors like recruiters. This reinforces the importance of proactive reporting of suspicious activities.

ii. This case demonstrates how recruitment, transaction monitoring, and international cooperation are focal points in preventing money laundering schemes

Source: ​https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/man-jailed-for-a-year-for-recruiting-money-launderers-1690986.html