{"id":163754,"date":"2025-11-28T06:10:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T06:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/163754\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T06:10:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T06:10:13","slug":"the-indo-daily-breifne-obrien-the-fall-of-a-celtic-tiger-fraudster-and-his-post-jail-reinvention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/163754\/","title":{"rendered":"The Indo Daily: Breifne O\u2019Brien \u2013 The fall of a Celtic Tiger fraudster and his post-jail reinvention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/d72d8cc4-3f32-4fa5-b0b0-21bbd55f9804.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">\u201cHe seemed to have it all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">At the height of Ireland&#8217;s economic boom, property investor Breifne O&#8217;Brien was the definition of upper middle class: expensive ski trips, an Aston Martin in the driveway and a holiday home in Barbados were standard signatures for a man of his social standing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">However, his lavish life was a fantasy funded by a Ponzi scheme, with O\u2019Brien spending 15 years making victims of his trusted circle of friends.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">As the global economic crash hit, O\u2019Brien\u2019s house of cards came tumbling down, and a prison cell awaited him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Today, he\u2019s back on the golf course and in gainful employment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom5 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">On this episode of The Indo Daily, host Kevin Doyle is joined by Sunday Independent journalist Maeve Sheehan to chart the downfall of Breifne O\u2019Brien and his surprising reinvention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHe seemed to have it all.\u201d At the height of Ireland&#8217;s economic boom, property investor Breifne O&#8217;Brien was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,898],"class_list":{"0":"post-163754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-latest-news-ticker"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}