By Sonya McLean
A parish priest had almost €50,000 stolen from his personal bank account in a scam after he tried to pay a connection fee for broadband through online banking.
The priest told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that he believes the bank failed him as a customer.
He said that he expected there would be a system in place with online banking that would have prevented the money being taken from his account.
Kelvin Kleinovas (24) later allowed €10,000 of the cash that had been stolen from the priest’s account to be lodged into his own account.
Kleinovas of Mayeston Green, St Margaret’s Road, Finglas, Dublin 11, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to having the proceeds of crime in his bank account in August 2019.
He was today given a suspended sentence.
Garda Bartholomew McCarthy told Tessa White BL prosecuting that the priest reported the theft to gardaí after Bank of Ireland alerted him to the fact that they had frozen his account due to suspicious activity.
He said days earlier the priest received a call to the presbytery indicating that the caller was from a broadband company.
He was told the line was being upgraded and the priest needed to pay a once-off fee of €5.
The priest was instructed to pay the fee online. He was told that when the fee was being processed, the screen would go blank but it would come back again to continue processing the payment.
Gda McCarthy confirmed that ultimately the priest tried to make the payment over 40 times over a four-day period, which resulted in almost €50,000 being stolen from his account.
The priest’s bank account was analysed and €10,000 of the cash stolen was traced to Kleinovas’s bank account.
He was arrested in September 2021 and claimed he had been approached to hand over his bank details for payment.
He supplied his details but was never paid.
Kleinovas has seven previous convictions including one for money laundering for which he received a two-year suspended sentence.
Gda McCarthy confirmed that none of the money stolen was ever recovered.
A victim impact statement from the priest said he had expected that there would have been some sort of system in place with online banking that would have prevented the money being taken from his account.
He said it was a serious amount of money taken and the theft has had a devastating impact on him.
The priest said he believes that the bank failed him as a customer and said that the fraudsters involved inflicted pain and suffering – “they must surely be emotionally stunted”, he continued.
“I suffer my loss and put it down to a hard loss,” he concluded. He thanked Gda McCarthy for his assistance and support throughout the investigation.
Gda McCarthy agreed with Marc Thompson BL defending that his client’s involvement “starts and stops with providing his bank details”.
He accepted that while he didn’t give any names of individuals, Kleinovas did co-operate with the gardaí and he didn’t assist further “more through fear than obstruction”.
The court heard that Kleinovas is involved with the Solas Project and has been actively looking for work which he is finding difficult as he is currently living in homeless accommodation.
He spends most of his spare time with his child.
Mr Thompson acknowledged that such frauds cannot be committed without the involvement of people like Kleinovas.
He acknowledged that the priest has had no recompense from the bank and said his client is of limited financial means.
He had written a letter of apology to the priest and today brought €2,000 to be handed over to him.
Judge Orla Crowe noted that the accused had carried out the offence for gain, and that he had previous convictions, including one for money laundering.
She said that the offence was, at best, a ‘very reckless thing to do’.
It had facilitated the theft of money in a very sophisticated phishing operation, she added.
However, she said that the court was going to give him one chance.
She imposed a sentence of 18 months but suspended it for three years on the payment of €2,000 for the injured party.