{"id":497571,"date":"2026-06-13T09:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T09:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/497571\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T09:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T09:33:09","slug":"healthcare-worker-guilty-of-terminal-2-lookalike-passport-smuggling-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/497571\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthcare worker guilty of Terminal 2 ‘lookalike’ passport smuggling incident"},"content":{"rendered":"

A UK-based healthcare assistant has pleaded guilty to smuggling a woman with a Swedish “lookalike” document into Ireland.<\/p>\n

Muna Mohamed Sharif (47), with an address at Bodmin Grove, Birmingham, England, was arrested at Dublin Airport on April 10th last.<\/p>\n

She was remanded in custody with consent to bail and appeared again at Dublin District Court, where she signed guilty pleas on Friday.<\/p>\n

Defence barrister, Paddy Flynn, told Judge Mark O’Connell he had consulted with the accused, who was fully aware of what she had signed.<\/p>\n

He added that she was unable to take up bail.<\/p>\n

Judge O’Connell granted an order sending her forward for sentencing at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, where the case will be listed for mention on July 8th next.<\/p>\n

Legal aid was granted.<\/p>\n

The Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) charged her under sections 6 and 8 of the Criminal Justice (Smuggling of Persons) Act 2021.<\/p>\n

She is accused of assisting another woman with unlawful entry into, transit across, or presence in the State, and of providing a fraudulent travel or identity document for that purpose.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Detective Garda Kerry O’Sullivan said Ms Sharif “made no reply” to the charges, which are punishable by a maximum 10-year prison term.<\/p>\n

The GNIB detective alleged that the accused and the woman who was brought into the country separately presented themselves to immigration officers in Terminal 2.<\/p>\n

However, she added that the airport officials “saw that they made eye contact with each other” and later discovered that Sharif had supplied the passenger with a Swedish lookalike document.<\/p>\n

The court heard she made admissions.<\/p>\n

Detective Garda O’Sullivan said Sharif’s phone contained correspondence and the lawful owner of the passport discussing a fee for the use of the travel document.<\/p>\n

The woman using it was from Somalia and has now claimed asylum, the court heard.<\/p>\n

Cross-examined by defence counsel, the detective agreed that the accused has lived in the UK since 2002, has British citizenship, and her only passport has been seized.<\/p>\n

She also acknowledged that Ms Sharif was cooperative, but did not believe that indicated she would attend her court proceedings if released.<\/p>\n

Counsel concurred that she did not have rigid ties to this country but argued that a lack of an address here was not a barrier to bail.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

Man jailed for instigating violent disorder at Balbriggan taxi rank<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Flynn explained that he had been instructed that his client had friends in Ireland who could be contacted from her phone.<\/p>\n

However, the GNIB detective did not think she had connections to Ireland and also said the accused was “very elusive about her friends”.<\/p>\n

Counsel portrayed that elusiveness as a sign of “greenness,” and his client thought she was helping, but the detective did not accept either.<\/p>\n

Cash was also seized from her, but the amount was not revealed at her bail hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A UK-based healthcare assistant has pleaded guilty to smuggling a woman with a Swedish “lookalike” document into Ireland.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-497571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497571","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=497571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}