Daniel Flanagan pleads guilty to holding crime proceeds

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Daniel Flanagan pleaded guilty to recklessly holding the proceeds of crime on dates in September 2018, contrary to the Money Laundering Act 2010. The proceedings were reported on 12 February 2021.

At a sentence hearing at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 11 February 2021, Judge Melanie Greally adjourned sentencing to February 2022 to give Flanagan time to make an effort to gather money to repay the victims.

Garda Stephen Hughes said gardaí began investigating Done Deal scams in September 2018 involving car parts that people paid for but did not receive. The court heard that €2,120 was found in Flanagan’s account. It was not alleged that he carried out the deceptions.

Defence counsel Anna Bazarchina said Flanagan had told gardaí he gave his bank details to someone to whom he owed a drug debt. She said he had been instructed to withdraw cash from an ATM up to four times and only then became suspicious that the money might be proceeds of crime. She described him as immature and susceptible to influence.

Judge Greally said schools, colleges and banks should do more to highlight the lasting consequences of allowing an account to be used this way. She said an account was valuable to criminals and that a person could have a serious blot on their record even if they did not go to jail.