By Sonya McLean
A man who recruited a number of people to allow their bank accounts to be used to facilitate a money laundering operation has been jailed for a year.
Innocent Aigbekaen (31) of Mary Street North, Dundalk, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of money laundering involving €75,816 and €60,989 on dates between April 2016 and October 2017.
Detective Garda Jennifer Connolly told Diana Stuart BL, prosecuting, that Aigbekaen had been involved in a scheme over 18 months that resulted in the laundering of about €331,000 in cash.
Sentencing Aigbekaen today, Judge Pauline Codd accepted evidence that Aigbekaen was “not the captain of the ship” but rather “a mule herder” who recruited various people including his wife and co-workers to allow their bank accounts to be used “to facilitate the ill-gotten gains from these frauds”.
“He engaged himself in a highly reckless manner – he should have known better than to do that,” Judge Codd said.
She set a headline sentence of five years before taking into account Aigbekaen’s plea of guilty and long history of employment.
Judge Codd imposed a sentence of four years in prison.
She took into consideration a probation report which she said indicated that Aigbekaen had “demonstrated limited remorse and limited insight” and had instead “sought to shift the blame to (another individual) who is not involved and certainly has not been investigated”.
The final three years of the sentence were suspended on strict conditions for three years.
Fergal Foley BL, defending, told Judge Codd at a previous sentence hearing that his client has not come to garda attention since the offence, apart from being caught with cannabis for his own use.
The drug case was dealt with “by way of payment and a strike out”, counsel said.
He said his client came to Ireland from Nigeria in 2014 to make “a better life for himself”.
He studied to improve his written and spoken English.
He asked the court to accept that Aigbekaen ultimately took responsibility for his role in the scheme.