Man jailed for stealing over €100,000 of goods from employer

By Eimear Dodd

A man who stole over €129,000 worth of electronics from his then-employer has been jailed for two years.

Magdi Ba (45) stole 371 electronic items including smartwatches, Fitbits, phones and laptops from DID Electrical over a three-year period, which he then sold on to another shop.

Ba of Ellensborough Grove, Kiltipper Road, Dublin 24 pleaded to nine counts of theft. The court was asked to take a further 362 counts into consideration. He has no previous convictions.

He worked at DID Electrical in the Fonthill Business Park between November 2017 and the end of 2021 and had access to the warehouse, the court heard.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that suspicions were raised in November 2021 when a warehouse manager noticed that five Apple devices were missing from a box.

A loss prevention officer viewed CCTV from the warehouse at the Fonthill Business Park store, and Ba was in the vault at the time it was believed the items were taken.

Another employee said he’d seen Ba at the CEX store in Tallaght. Karl Moran BL, prosecuting, told the court this chain of shops buys second hand electronic products from members of the public. CEX takes a note of the serial number from any product bought and a description.

A full list of Ba’s alleged transactions at the CEX store was obtained by DID, which cross-checked products sold with its suppliers.

Mr Moran told the court that staff at DID manually identified the 371 items sold by Ba to CEX with stock previously supplied to DID.

The total loss to DID Electrical is €129,651 while Ba received a total of €60,009 from CEX. None of the items taken have been recovered as they were all sold.

As part of their investigation, gardai reviewed bank records, which showed money which could not be explained by Ba’s then income and a payment to his then-partner’s mortgage.

Ba’s home was searched in January 31, 2022 and electronics including iPads, iPhones, Samsung Galaxy watches and Earbuds were found.

He was arrested in his car in the Fonthill Retail Park three days later and was interviewed three times.

Ba initially denied taking anything, but later accepted that he had, estimating the figure was about 200, but saying he wasn’t sure.

He said he took them from a returns box, but accepted he’d taken other items as well.

Judge Orla Crowe described his offending as a ‘consistent breach of trust’ protracted over a period of time.

“This has to be a custodial sentence,” she remarked.

She noted that Ba had forfeited the contents of two bank accounts with a value of €67,000, along with his car, and she sentenced him to two years in prison.