A former ATU student who admitted being reckless as to allow her Revolut account to be used for money laundering has received a deferred sentence.
Marian Balogun, with a previous address at Chestnut Grove in Letterkenny, appeared before Letterkenny Circuit Court.
Ms Balogun, now 26, admitted the charges under the Money Laundering Act.
Detective Garda Gerard McCready gave an outline of the case against Ms Balogun, who now lives and works in London.
He told how a sum of €3,000 came into Ms Balogun’s Revolut account from the bank account of another person on various dates in June, 2020.
The money came in ten different instalments of €300.
It later left Ms Balogun’s account and the bank account it was transferred to was closed in August 2020.
Detective McCready said Ms Balogun was living in the UK and that she came voluntarily from the UK to speak with Garda and said she was very cooperative.
She outlined how she had met a man whom she had known from her college days in Letterkenny and he said he was having problems transferring money from his UK bank account to his Irish account.
She explained to Gardai that she agreed to allow the man to use her account but during the interview she realised that it had been a very reckless thing to do.
Her barrister, Mr Colm Smith, SC, said his client was originally from Nigeria and had no previous convictions of any kind.
She had qualified form college and was working in the pharmaceutical industry in London but had given up her job to get this situation sorted once and for all.
Mr Smith said Ms Balogun had been “recruited” by the man and that she now accepts that this was a reckless thing to have done but at the time didn’t believe it was a criminal offence.
Ms Balogun took to the witness stand and said she genuinely did not know she was committing an offence.
She said she did not know what she was doing was money laundering as the man she received the money from was working and that she had known him.
She accepted that a criminal conviction will cause her problems in future as she will have to explain her situation when she applies for positions involved in the manufacture of prescriptive drugs.
Mr Smith said as a way of a gesture of compensation his client had €500 which could be donated to the local St Vincent De Paul office in Letterkenny.
He asked Judge John Aylmer if he could be as lenient as possible saying his client had already suffered in the circumstances.
Passing sentence Judge Aylmer said he has said frequently that such offences are serious albeit acknowledging that they usual involve students being taken advantage of by criminals.
He said money laundering comes in all forms and can involve millions but not in this case and he placed the offence at the lower end of the scale meriting a sentence of 18 months in prison before mitigation.
He said he had listened carefully to Detective McCready who was anxious to emphasise the level of cooperation and to stress that he viewed her conduct as reckless.
“I do pay careful attention to the manner in which Gardai give their evidence,” he stressed.
Ms Balogun came before the court with no previous convictions and a glowing report from the Probation Services as well as a gesture of €500 in compensation.
Because of these factors he said the appropriate sentence was one of 12 months but that this case was one which could be catered for under the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act for a deferred sentence.
He deferred the sentence until the June session of the court on the conditions that the accused be of good behaviour and provide a receipt for the payment of compensation to St Vincent de Paul.
If these conditions are observed Ms Balogun will not have to serve a custodial sentence.