Five members of an Athlone family were found to have built up \u20ac366,000 in \u201cundeclared\u201d earnings and thousands of euro worth of designer clothes, a court has heard.<\/p>\n
Carer\u2019s allowance recipient Christopher Joyce (51) and his wife Julie Joyce (50) who is on disability allowance, their sons William (27) and David Patrick Joyce (28) and William\u2019s 28-year-old wife Kathleen Reilly, all of Ardilaun, Athlone, Co Westmeath, pleaded guilty at Mullingar Circuit Criminal Court to money laundering from 2020 to 2023.<\/p>\n
The father and his two sons also admitted drug-dealing charges.<\/p>\n
The court heard their activities triggered an inquiry by Athlone garda\u00ed, which led to warrants to examine the five family members\u2019 finances through their bank, credit union and Revolut records.<\/p>\n
Christian Louboutin, Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga and Canada Goose dresses, coats, purses, runners and high heels were among the \u20ac30,000 cache of designer labels catalogued at their home.<\/p>\n
They remain on bail and will be sentenced in December.<\/p>\n
Judge Kenneth Connolly heard how Garda inquiries revealed that Christopher and Julie Joyce, parents to seven children, had received \u20ac165,000 in their various accounts. <\/p>\n
Christopher Joyce had turned to drug dealing as a result of gambling debts and was ashamed, the court heard. His wife had suffered serious health problems.<\/p>\n
David Patrick Joyce had received \u20ac38,294, William Joyce had picked up \u20ac61,000, and mother of two Kathleen Joyce had \u20ac101,000 transferred into her accounts over the same period.<\/p>\n
The court heard in 2022 that undercover garda\u00ed contacted drug dealers on a particular mobile phone number or through Snapchat. Members of the Westmeath Divisional Units sent a series of messages looking to buy drugs.<\/p>\n
A garda arrived and met Christopher Joyce at a location in Athlone, and bought about \u20ac110 worth of cocaine from him, and another supply valued at \u20ac150 about two months later.<\/p>\n
David Patrick Joyce, on three dates, sold three deals of cocaine, with a total value of \u20ac800. <\/p>\n
Unemployed William Joyce sold \u20ac300 worth of cocaine to an undercover garda on three days in 2022, and met him at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Mullingar for these transactions.<\/p>\n
William Joyce was later stopped while driving and found to have \u20ac8,000 in cash. His brother, David Joyce, who owned a \u20ac16,000 Jeep, told garda\u00ed it was for buying a horse.<\/p>\n
David Joyce had maintained he had been awarded about \u20ac80,000 over the years as a result of traffic accidents. The court heard he had a caravan worth \u20ac7,200 and that he had since started a roofing business.<\/p>\n
Parked at the family home were a \u20ac35,000 Volkswagen car and a \u20ac40,000 Toyota Land Cruiser.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five members of an Athlone family were found to have built up \u20ac366,000 in \u201cundeclared\u201d earnings and thousands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1346,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-165299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-garda-siochana","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165299","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=165299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}