Man to be sentenced later for his role in a €125,000 invoice redirect fraud scheme

By Jessica Magee

A man will be sentenced at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court later this week for his role in a €125,000 invoice redirect fraud affecting three Irish companies.

The court heard that hackers broke into employees’ email addresses, then contacting suppliers and creditors to divert legitimate payment for engineering work into a different bank account.

Kayode Falade (37) of St Vincent’s Street North, Phibsboro, Dublin 7, pleaded guilty to five counts of money laundering on June 27, 28 and 29, 2017, including one charge of converting the proceeds of crime into Nigerian currency at a post office in Blanchardstown.

The other counts relate to possessing the proceeds of crime in amounts of up to €5,000 from various ATMs in north Dublin on the days in question, and one count of transferring the proceeds of crime into a bank account.

Detective Garda Chris Fitzgerald told Fiona Crawford BL, prosecuting, that hackers broke into business emails and deleted certain email messages.

They then created similar, new email accounts by adding an extra letter to various email addresses in order to correspond with suppliers and people owed, or owing, money.

Det Fitzgerald said IPUT, a large property investment firm, had contracted Savills, another real estate firm, to install a generator in a Dublin apartment complex.

Cobec Engineering tendered successfully for the job and completed the installation in May 2017, before requesting payment from Savills.

The court heard that the facilities manager from Savills sent the invoice on to IPUT – except that their email address was hacked, the invoice was intercepted and changed before being sent to IPUT.

The hackers also broke into several email addresses of Cobec staff and IPUT paid the invoice of €125,702 into to an EBS bank account, not Cobec’s usual Ulster Bank account.

The payment went through, but Ulster Bank employees noticed a discrepancy and managed to recall €114,621 of the money which was sent to the rightful creditor.

However, CCTV footage showed various sums being withdrawn by the accused from EBS bank machines at Phibsboro and Finglas, and from an AIB ATM in Blanchardstown.

The property company IPUT was left at a loss of €11,091 which has not been recovered, the court heard.

Gardaí obtained warrants to investigate bank accounts and traced the account to the accused and to a false Nigerian passport.

A search was carried out of Falade’s home address in Phibsboro where gardaí found various documents including three EBS bank statements, a mobile phone and other documents.

Falade was arrested in March 2018 and although he cooperated with gardaí, he made no admissions.

He has 31 previous convictions for offences carried out between 2006 and 2014, including five theft offences, five public order offences and 20 road traffic charges, including four instances of drunk driving.

Det Fitpatrick agreed with Simon Matthews BL, defending, that there was nothing to suggest that Falade had been involved in hacking into email accounts.

Mr Matthews said that Falade was not the main player in the operation and was easily identifiable due to being linked to the bank account in question.

A letter of apology from Falade was handed into court.

Mr Matthews said his client works full time in a supermarket and has a young son for whom he pays maintenance.

The court heard Falade came to Ireland with his family when he was 16 and struggled to fit into the Irish school system.

He has abided by his bail conditions and has not come to garda attention since these money laundering charges, the court heard.

“He seems to be a positive and contributing member of society,” counsel maintained.

Judge Orla Crowe adjourned sentencing until this Friday, June 23.