Insurance agent gets four years for €2.3m fraud

An insurance agent who defrauded insurance companies of €2.3 million by getting commissions on bogus pension schemes was jailed for four years by Judge Katherine Delahunt yesterday at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Noel Fitzpatrick (42) formed "Terrintech Ireland" as a bogus company and was paid the €2.3 million in commission from three insurance companies after acting as an intermediary in setting up pension schemes on behalf of the company's non-existent staff.

Fitzpatrick of St Gabriels, Johnstown Road, Cabinteely, Dublin, pleaded guilty to seven sample charges of falsely pretending various named people were applicants for pension schemes at Canada Life Ireland, Friends First Ireland and New Ireland Assurance on dates between July 2000 and July 2001.

He also pleaded guilty to securing a IR£400,000 loan in July 2001 from Anglo Irish Bank by falsely pretending he owned three properties and to providing a false document in the name of Terrintech Ireland to the Companies Registration Office on March 3rd, 2002.

Fitzpatrick had to pay the monthly pension contributions to the various companies as part of the fraud, reducing his overall profit from the scheme being €1.6 million.

Judge Delahunt told Fitzpatrick that there was no doubt, especially considering his subsequent extravagant lifestyle, that the "scams perpetrated had a limited lifespan and that the house of cards collapsed in a relatively short time".

She said that he had shown cunning in embarking on this enterprise "solely for this lavish lifestyle" and that the financial institutions concerned were left with a significant shortfall.

Judge Delahunt said she took into account Fitzpatrick's co-operation with the Garda, the fact that €8,000 was paid back to Friends First, his lack of previous convictions and that he had been in custody since February last year.

She also noted that Fitzpatrick was now virtually unemployable in the financial services industry and that he had ruined not only his own life but also that of his family.

At the sentence hearing, Insp Denis Heneghan told Dominic McGinn, prosecuting, that Fitzpatrick supplied the Anglo Irish Bank with a fictitious solicitor's letter forged by him to secure the IR£400,000 bridging loan which he used to pay off a IR£290,000 Allied Irish Bank loan.

He defrauded €336,700 from Canada Life, €479, 873 from New Ireland and €1,505,374 from Friends First after securing the commission from bogus applications for pension schemes by providing a forged "letter of undertaking" from a solicitor stating that he owned three properties.

Insp Heneghan told Mr McGinn that Fitzpatrick had spent all his profit by September 2002 on jewellery, cars, golf and health club fees, setting up two new businesses, furniture and home improvements, his mortgage and bank loans.

Insp Heneghan agreed with Patrick Gageby SC (with Seán Guerin), defending, that Fitzpatrick was not really solvent after borrowing all the funds required to buy a €630,000 house in Cabinteely in June 2000. He tried to defer this debt and others that he had accumulated by getting the loan from Anglo Irish Bank and he then covered the repayments for this loan by defrauding the three insurance companies.