BUSINESSMAN BREIFNE O’BRIEN has been jailed for seven years for running a Ponzi scheme which cost his victims millions of euro.

O’Brien used the stolen cash to pay for an extension to his house, a new car for his wife and the stamp duty on new properties, in the multi-million euro scheme.

He convinced family business associates and long-standing friends from his days in Trinity College Dublin that he was linked to property deals in Paris, Manchester and Hamburg and a shipping insurance scheme.

The deals were all bogus. O’Brien used fake letters and invented connections to international businessmen and lawyers to get the victims to continue to give him money.

O’Brien (52), of Kilmore, Monkstown Grove, County Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 14 sample counts out of a total of 45 theft and deception charges at National Irish Bank and Ulster Bank, Donnybrook, Dublin on dates between 2003 and 2008.

O’Brien, whose family home is Carrigrohane Castle, County Cork, had denied all charges, but changed his plea to guilty on the day his trial was due to start.

No money back for victims

The court heard that the total loss to the five victims is €8.5 million and that O’Brien owes further amounts to other creditors.

Shane Costello SC, prosecuting, said that so far €420,000 has been recovered through the release of assets owned by O’Brien but that none of this is available to the victims. At a previous hearing it was incorrectly stated that the amount recovered was €2 million.

Counsel for O’Brien said that he has already transferred his entitlement to GBP£1,065,000 worth of shares in a UK computer gaming company to the creditors group but that these shares have not yet been realised.

He has also signed documents in relation to other loan notes and investments and has been in early discussions with a group of investors with regard to other foreign properties.

Mr Costello said that even if every euro set out in a “highly speculative” schedule of assets presented by O’Brien’s counsel was realised it would have to be divided up between the victims in this case and a larger group of creditors.

Judge Patricia Ryan said the central lie in the case was that the money given to O’Brien was not retained in his deposit account but instead used for a myriad of purposes.

-Declan Brennan