Man given suspended sentence for role in phishing scam

By Niamh O’Donoghue

A man has been given a suspended sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for his part in a phishing scam.

Nathan Ndaba (26) of Starwood, Coolmine, Saggart, Dublin pleaded guilty to money laundering €8,500 on August 15, 2019.

The court heard the accused has 29 previous convictions for road traffic offences and failing to appear.

Garda Darragh Cash told the court the injured party fell victim to a phishing scam and she had two missed calls from Bank of Ireland. When she checked her online banking, her account was blocked.

A transaction was made which was not authorised by her and orders were sought in relation to the account the money was transferred to. The money the account was transferred to belonged to Ndaba.

CCTV was harvested from the Bank of Ireland on James Street where a man other than Ndaba was seeking to withdraw money, the court heard.

Ndaba was arrested on September 3, 2019 and taken to Sundrive Garda Station where he said he didn’t know how the money ended up in his bank account.

He said he was approached by a man called “Black John” to use his account.

All the money was returned to the injured party’s account and a victim impact statement was handed into the court but not read out.

Under cross-examination the garda agreed he entered an early plea and played a peripheral role. He also agreed Ndaba was using cocaine at the time and was put under pressure to give control of his account.

He said he didn’t know the details of what was going to transpire, the money was recovered and another person took the money out. He further agreed he was working full-time as a personal trainer.

Karl Monahan BL, defending, said Ndaba had previous convictions but “not for something of this nature,” to which Judge Nolan replied: “Perfect mitigation for something like this”.

His defence counsel said there had been a lot of media publicity around such cases recently to which Judge Nolan replied: “If someone asked you for your bank account 20 years ago or two years ago, they are up to wrongdoing.”

Judge Nolan said the appropriate sentence was 20 months but he suspended it in full on strict conditions. He also ordered Ndaba to hand €1000 to gardai to apply to a charity within three months of today’s date.

“This is to remind Mr Ndaba not to re-offend,” said the judge.