Man jailed for possessing cash stolen by cross-border ATM raid gang

A “family man” who got involved with a cross-border gang that carried out a series of destructive ATM thefts wept as he was jailed by the Special Criminal Court.

The non-jury court also denied the defendant’s request for a postponement of the sentence to allow him to spend Christmas with his children.

Niall Finnegan (39) of Cherry Grove, Cullyhanna, Co Armagh pleaded guilty in July at the three-judge court to possessing or handling €103,930 at The Yard, Tullypole, Moynalty, Co Meath, on August 20th, 2019.

At the non-jury court on Monday, Mr Justice Tony Hunt jailed Finnegan for four-and-a-half years, suspending the final 18 months for three years for possessing the cash, which was the proceeds of ATM thefts carried out by a criminal organisation.

Defence counsel Breffni Gordon BL asked the court to consider postponing the activation of the sentence until after Christmas so that Finnegan could spend the holiday season with his three children.

Mr Justice Hunt denied the application, saying Finnegan would be better off starting the sentence now and have the Christmas “at the other end” without a sentence hanging over him.

Finnegan had pleaded guilty to committing the offence under Section 73 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006, amended, which states that a person ‘commits a serious offence for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with, a criminal organisation”.

In sentencing Finnegan, Mr Justice Hunt said Det Sgt Mark Looby had given evidence to the court regarding an investigation into six ATM thefts in Cavan and Monaghan between September 2018 and August 2019. The judge said the thefts had been carried out by what gardaí­ believed to be a cross-border gang based in east Monaghan and south Armagh.

Criminal damage

Det Sgt Looby said the gang had used excavators to rip the ATMs from their locations and they had caused “significant amounts of criminal damage” during six raids and attempted raids in the Border region.

He also said the gang had stolen €790,000 before arrests were made two years ago by undercover detectives monitoring the activities of suspects.

The court was told that  in the early hours of August 14th, 2019, a grey Toyota Landcruiser and a flat back truck was used to steal a 14-tonne digger on the Bailieborough Road in Virginia, Co Cavan.

The digger was to be used in the theft of the ATM at the Riverfront Hotel in the town but the Garda Emergency Response unit intervened. Two men were arrested inside the hour after gardaí ­ intervened and a third man was later arrested.

Mr Justice Hunt said that gardaí ­ got a search warrant for a yard at Tullypole and found €289,900 in cash and a money counter in a shed.

One of the arrested males had at that stage been released by gardaí ­ and had been driven to Tullypole by Finnegan in his Berlingo van where two packages of cash were dug up and put in a shed.

Finnegan and this man left and returned with a third man in a Toyota Avensis later in the day and put €103,930 in the Toyota, which was later discovered to be registered in a false name.

Mr Justice Hunt said that while Finnegan admitted to twice driving to Tullypole on the day, he denied any involvement with the ATM thefts.

The judge said that Finnegan had an assault conviction from 2002 for which he received a suspended sentence but that he had not come to adverse Garda attention since the incident on August 14th, 2019.

The judge said the maximum sentence for the offence was 15 years imprisonment but the court had placed the crime at the lower end of the middle spectrum of offending.

At a sentencing hearing in October, Finnegan gave an undertaking to not be involved in any criminality nor associate with other named individuals before the courts on ATM theft charges.

Mr Justice Hunt gave Finnegan credit for his guilty plea, his co-operation with the investigation, his work history, work in the community and said that he was a “family man”.

However, the judge said that Finnegan had “no doubt” that he was aware of the background to the case in reference to the ATM thefts. Mr Justice Hunt said there was no “romantic” reading of the crimes and said the court noted that crime cash was often used for funding further crime.

The loss of an ATM to a rural town, said the judge, was a “significant concern” to communities.

Mr Justice Hunt fixed six years as a pre-mitigation headline sentence, adding that he could not envisage a non-custodial sentence as it would “almost certainly be unduly lenient”. The judge said that criminal gangs often preyed on the vulnerable and those easily manipulated but noted that Finnegan did not have financial or addiction issues.

The judge then gave Finnegan the full 25 per cent discount for his guilty plea, resulting in a four-and-a-half year sentence, and suspended the final 18 months of the sentence for three years.

A family member then embraced a tearful Finnegan before he was taken to the cells.