{"id":485996,"date":"2026-05-15T12:43:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T12:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/485996\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T12:43:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T12:43:13","slug":"man-with-no-income-had-thousands-worth-of-designer-gear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/485996\/","title":{"rendered":"Man with no income had thousands worth of designer gear"},"content":{"rendered":"

A young man who had no source of income had over \u20ac5,000 worth of expensive designer gear at his home, a court has heard.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Michael Ibrahim (22) of Taylor Hill Court, Balbriggan, pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering after \u20ac4,335 was transferred to his Revolut account after having been stolen from the Bank of Ireland account of a woman.<\/p>\n

Ibrahim, who has 28 previous convictions and was described as a promising young rugby player, was previously jailed<\/a> for 18 months for possession of a machete\u00a0on a summer\u2019s night in Dublin while high on cannabis.<\/p>\n

Sergeant Paul Kelly of Cabra Garda station agreed with prosecuting counsel, Oisin Clarke BL, who told the court that the victim had received a text which she believed was from Bank of Ireland but transpired to be a \u201csmishing\u201d scam.<\/p>\n

After she responded to the text by entering some of her banking information via the provided link, the money was taken from the account; however, Bank of Ireland officials intervened and recalled the funds. Sergeant Kelly told the court that the woman was deprived of her money for about two days.<\/p>\n

Judge Orla Crowe heard that the initial investigation was not related to the accused; however, his Revolut account number was highlighted as part of a suspicious transaction.<\/p>\n

When Sergeant Peter Finan searched his home address on the 6th of June 2024, \u201ca lot of items\u201d of \u201chigh-end brand-name\u201d runners and jackets, including DKNY, Tommy Hilfiger, Air Max, and Jordan were found. There was also an empty AirPods box and an expensive iPhone.<\/p>\n

The accused was unable to provide any evidence of income or employment, and when he was asked how he paid for food, \u00a0he claimed that the items were \u201cgifts\u201d from his mother, brother, and friend; however, these claims were not confirmed by the individuals concerned.<\/p>\n

The court heard that the items of clothing were either \u201cnew\u201d or with signs of \u201clight wear\u201d.<\/p>\n

When he questioned about the money in his Revolut account, he said that he had given his IBAN to a friend, which he now accepts was a bad idea, claiming that he had \u201cno idea how\u201d the money had reached him.<\/p>\n

Sergeant Kelly and defending counsel Pieter Le Vert BL disagreed about whether the app would have prompted the accused to approve the payment in order for it to reach his account.<\/p>\n

The court heard that Ibrahim, who is a father of one, originally took a trial date in respect of the charges he was facing at the time before changing his counsel and accepting a plea to money laundering after this.<\/p>\n

Mr Le Vert reminded Judge Crowe that his client is currently serving a sentence imposed by the same court and has a release date of the 27th of February 2027.<\/p>\n

Mr Levr told the court that Ibrahim\u2019s father resides in the US, while his mother lives in Ireland and is very supportive of him. He has one \u201cnon-identical twin brother\u201d.<\/p>\n

He argued that Ibrahim\u2019s partner has seen \u201cvery positive changes\u201d in him since his incarceration, and that she brings their child to visit him weekly.<\/p>\n

Ibrahim was an \u201cextremely promising rugby player\u201d until he had his \u201cdream ripped away in an instant due to an injury,\u201d which Mr Le Vert argued had set him on a path of wrongdoing after he fell in with a bad crowd.<\/p>\n

Having heard the facts, Judge Crowe adjourned sentencing until the 30th of July.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young man who had no source of income had over \u20ac5,000 worth of expensive designer gear at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,212286,15,16,47155,5,10927,7,8],"class_list":["post-485996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-machete","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-money-laundering","tag-news","tag-revolut","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116578655102736294","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}