Raul Rodriguez Ramirez jailed for defrauding 18 students

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

Raul Rodriguez Ramirez was sentenced at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 18 months in prison, with the final nine months suspended, for defrauding 18 international students of just under €30,000. The sentencing proceedings were reported on 27 June 2024.

Ramirez pleaded guilty to inducing 18 foreign language students to pay sums of money with intent to make a gain for himself between June 2020 and June 2021. The earlier proceedings were reported on 4 December 2023.

Ramirez ran Travel Now, an agency that helped international students arrange English courses in Ireland. He used money intended for their courses to fund a Mexican restaurant in Dublin, which failed during the pandemic.

Ramirez told gardaí he had taken agency money to pay the restaurant’s bills and used money from later students to pay fees for earlier students. He said he thought he would have enough time to get everyone’s money back. Detective Garda Paul Griffin agreed with defence counsel that he did not believe Ramirez had intentionally been scamming students at the start.

At sentencing, Judge Orla Crowe said Ramirez had been in a significant position of trust over the students and that his actions were a breach of that trust. She said the threshold for a custodial sentence had been met, while noting his remorse and the money repaid. The court directed that the €18,050 repaid be divided among the injured parties on a pro rata basis.

The amounts taken ranged from €1,292 to €3,800. Judge Crowe said some students had lost their life savings, suffered depression or had to use homeless services. Ramirez had no previous convictions and apologised to the victims.