A suspect is being questioned about a massive Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) scam involving the personal details of employees who worked in a north Dublin business.
early €50,000 was stolen in the welfare fraud after a criminal organisation obtained the employees’ details from either an internal or external data breach at the company they worked for.
The PUP payments totalling €49,500 were then paid into bank accounts set up with false passports that featured the arrested man’s photo.
Some of that cash was later laundered into his own personal account.
The investigation is being carried out by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) and is part of Operation Skein, which targets money-laundering linked to international invoice redirect fraud.
The suspect, who is aged in his 20s, was arrested in a planned operation in Swords, north Co Dublin, on Wednesday in which GNECB detectives were backed up by gardaí on secondment to the Department of Social Protection.
A source told the Irish Independent the arrested man has been “displaying trappings of wealth”, and gardaí have seized a top-of-the-range Audi car valued at €45,000 that was bought with cash.
Fraud squad detectives also believe the suspect recently bought a house and believe he is strongly connected to gangs involved in scams.
“This case is slightly unusual in that the money this individual was obtaining was not being sent elsewhere,” a source said. “It appears he was keeping it all for himself.”
Sources said the suspect’s links to wider criminal organisations can be seen by the fact that an estimated €120,000 stolen in an online fraud was paid into the bogus bank accounts he set up with his own image on the false passports.
This money was obtained from a business email compromise scam.
The arrested man is a close associate of a suspect who was charged with a sexual assault, but is now believed to have fled the country after being granted bail.
Detectives are continuing to question the fraud suspect at Swords garda station under Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act, 2007.
“During the course of the search, laptops, phones, documentation, a quantity of cash and a car were seized,” a garda spokeswoman said.
Gardaí said Operation Skein has led to 200 arrests for mainly money-laundering offences over the past two years.
Detectives have established that around €32m has been laundered through Irish bank accounts by criminals who have been working for the international Black Axe crime network.
This organisation originated in Nigeria, and the suspect in custody in Swords was born there, but is now an Irish citizen.
In Ireland, the Black Axe syndicate is manned by wholesale fraudsters, targeting businesses and individuals primarily in invoice redirect fraud, “smishing” text messages and online romance scams.
Smishing is the fraudulent practice of sending text messages purporting to be from reputable companies in order to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords or credit card numbers.
It has not yet been established whether the man arrested this week is part of that organisation.
Sources said gardaí are hopeful of securing charges against the suspect, who remained in custody last night.
Operation Skein has been so successful that other EU police forces are planning on using it as a best practice model, with senior GNECB detectives giving presentations on the investigation to international police forces.
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