{"id":344661,"date":"2026-03-13T19:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/344661\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T19:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:08:07","slug":"man-jailed-over-role-in-e500000-an-post-smishing-scam-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/344661\/","title":{"rendered":"Man jailed over role in \u20ac500,000 An Post smishing scam \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An \u201cimportant actor\u201d in an organised crime money-laundering operation within the State, who benefited from a \u20ac500,000 An Post<\/a> smishing<\/a> scam, has been jailed for 7\u00bd years.<\/p>\n

Among other crimes, Brandon Abrahams (33) was involved in making false documents for \u201cgratuitous self-interest\u201d that were so sophisticated they were accepted as genuine by financial organisations and bodies including An Garda S\u00edochana, Judge Martina Baxter told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court<\/a> while sentencing him on Friday. <\/p>\n

When officers from the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau raided the home of Abrahams in 2024, they found a laptop containing \u201cthousands and thousands\u201d of Excel spreadsheet pages outlining people\u2019s personal debit-card information from around the world.<\/p>\n

Abrahams had been making sophisticated and high-quality fake UK driving licences and utility bills in different aliases, which he used to set up various accounts in financial institutions including An Post and the credit union, and which he also sold to other fraudsters, Det Gda Sean Duignan told Diana Stuart, prosecuting.<\/p>\n

A total of \u20ac147,230 went through his various accounts over the relevant period, the court heard.<\/p>\n

Abrahams, of Belvedere Place, Dublin 1, pleaded guilty to one count of participating in or contributing to the activity of a criminal organisation contrary to section 72 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006.<\/p>\n

He pleaded guilty to a further nine offences including money laundering, possessing proceeds of crime and possessing a false instrument. The offences occurred over a 2\u00bd-year period on dates between 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n

He has 55 previous convictions, mainly for road traffic offences as well as theft, deception, drugs and criminal damage.<\/p>\n

His co-accused, Kim Porter (31) of Casement Park, Finglas, Dublin 11, pleaded guilty to 10 related offences involving money laundering, deception, enhancing a criminal organisation, possession of cocaine and making off from a hotel without paying for her stay. Evidence in her case was heard earlier this week and was adjourned to July for finalisation.<\/p>\n

Sentencing Abrahams, the judge said there were concerns about a number of his assertions to the Probation Service outlined in a report, dating from just last week, that stated Porter is his fiancee and he is a stepfather to her three children.<\/p>\n

Porter\u2019s sentence hearing heard the couple were no longer together.<\/p>\n

The judge said she could place little merit on Abrahams\u2019 claims he suffers from PTSD and gambling and drug addiction, noting there is little evidence of this. She noted garda\u00ed are not even sure Abrahams is originally from South Africa, as he has claimed.<\/p>\n

She also said she could not rely on an assertion by Abrahams that he will leave the country upon his release from custody, given he is apparently still in a relationship with Porter and acts as a father figure to her children. He also has two children of his own who live here, the court heard.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe played a role in the participation of this organisation, he was benefiting financially and was an important actor, achieving their aims by deceit and money laundering,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She noted Abrahams was doing Open University courses in custody \u201cto enhance his clearly excellent computer and IT skills\u201d. <\/p>\n

She set a jail term of 7\u00bd years, which she backdated to when Abrahams went into custody in September 2024. She said there was no reality to suspending any portion of this sentence, given the issues raised by the Probation Service. <\/p>\n

At a previous sentence hearing, Duignan said Abrahams benefited from an An Post smishing scam in which \u20ac500,000 was stolen from about 30 accounts to benefit about 50 criminals. Smishing is a form of cybercrime involving the use of fraudulent text messages to deceive victims.<\/p>\n

He also received \u20ac56,400 into an AIB account he set up under an alias along with various other amounts into other accounts.<\/p>\n

He used money that was the proceeds of crime to pay for the down payment on a Mercedes and received finance for the same car through fraudulent means. He and Porter bought flights to Turkey, leaving Aer Lingus at a loss of \u20ac450 under a \u201cchargeback fraud\u201d. They took these flights, the court heard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An \u201cimportant actor\u201d in an organised crime money-laundering operation within the State, who benefited from a \u20ac500,000 An…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,18991,42851,3312,61,60,43,257],"class_list":["post-344661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-an-post","tag-central-criminal-court","tag-cybersecurity","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344661","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=344661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}