Money mule jailed for money laundering

By Sonya McLean

A man described as “a money mule” in a larger money laundering organisation has been jailed for a year after he allowed his bank account to be used.

Ifeanyichukwu Nwaneri (37) of Donore Avenue, Dublin 8, was convicted by a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury following a trial earlier this year.

He had pleaded not guilty to four counts of money laundering on dates between February 2017 and October 2017. He has no previous convictions.

Gardaí later interviewed Nwaneri who accepted that the bank accounts were his. He said he handed them over to another man to be used. He said this man had told him he needed the bank accounts in order to pay for his brother’s education.

Judge Elva Duffy acknowledged that Nwaneri had the right to contest the charges in a trial but said that as he had been studying accounting and finance at the time, he should have had “some level of knowledge of what was taking place”.

She also noted that he had allowed for a number of lodgements into one bank account and then opened a second bank account when the first bank account was frozen by the bank after staff became suspicious of the activity on the account.

Judge Duffy said an initial amount of just over €34,000 being lodged into Nwaneri’s account would have caused most people “to step back and question it” but she said Nwaneri continued to allow his account to be used for further lodgements.

Judge Duffy sentenced Nwaneri to three years in prison with the final two years suspended on strict conditions.

The court heard that Nwaneri had been recruited to act as a money mule by another man, Innocent Aigbekaen (31).

Aigbekaen 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.

Aigbekaen had been involved in a scheme over 18 months that resulted in the laundering of  €331,000 in cash.

He was described in court during a previous sentence hearing as “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 of frauds”.

Judge Pauline Codd imposed a sentence of four years on Aigbekaen and suspended the final three years on strict conditions.

Garrett McCormack BL prosecuting told the court heard that Nwaneri allowed sums of €34,918, €17,109 and €10,000 be lodged into two separate bank accounts in his name. A further sum of just over €7,000 was also lodged into the second bank account but the bank were immediately suspicious of his lodgement and it bounced back and was never credited to his account.

The court heard that all but €4,918 was withdrawn from an AIB account in three separate withdrawals of €10,000 over three days. The account was then frozen.

Nwaneri then opened a Permanent TBS account in April 2017 to which the other three lodgements were made.

Much of the funds were transferred to another bank account which was described in court as “a high volume account which received money in and out of Ireland very quickly” with an estimated turnover in that account of €4.2 million.

He has no previous convictions and has been in Ireland since 2015.

James Dwyer SC, defending, handed in a number of character references on behalf of Nwaneri from his mother, sister and friend.