A 42 year Romanian thief, dubbed the ‘Beast from the East’ by a judge is expected to fly home in the next number of days.
This follows Judge Gerald Keys at an appeal hearing at Ennis Circuit Court reducing Auriel Dinca’s 15 month jail term imposed in the district court last month to three months.
Judge Keys suspended the remainder of the prison term on the proviso that Mr Dinca leave Ireland within days and imposed a seven year ban on Mr Dinca returning to the country.
Mr Dinca has been in custody since April 22nd and with remission can expect to be released in the next number of days to allow him fly home.
Mr Dinca was jailed last month after Judge Patrick Durcan at Ennis District Court said that Mr Dinca and his five month pregnant partner, Adriana Neagoe (26) had flown into Ireland from Romania “seeking out vulnerable people with bank accounts and essentially cleared out the bank accounts”.
Judge Durcan jailed ‘Beast from the East’ Mr Dinca for 15 months and imposed a five month suspended sentence on Ms Neagoe on condition that she leave Ireland within 14 days under the supervision of the prison authorities.
Jailing Mr Dinca, Judge Durcan said: “People can’t come in from outside like the ‘Beast from the East’ we complained about earlier this year in a weather sense and now we have it in a human form, ‘The Beast from the East’ comes in and targets vulnerable people and this court is not tolerating that.”
Judge Durcan said: “It is mind-boggling that people come in from Romania and target Ireland and experienced criminals come in here and target vulnerable people.”
In the case, €2,100 was stolen from Monica Donovan in Gort in April of this year; €2,571 from Ann O’Flaherty in Galway City last November; €2,400 from Kathleen Fitzgerald in February in Cork and €3,080 from Tess Frost in Shannon in February of this year.
Judge Durcan said that two had “gone on a spree” and that the victims were only fully compensated by their banks and not by the perpetrators of the crime.
Insp Tom Kennedy told the court that what occurred “was at the highest end of deceitful activity I have ever come across”.
He said that the victims were “vulnerable citizens, some in their 70s and 80s out doing their shopping and you have these sneaky people coming behind them noting down their PIN numbers at ATM machines and later distracting the person in car-parks”.
Insp Kennedy said that the two “were tracking these vulnerable ladies. It is very alarming. These two were preying on women of advancing years and trawling the country for them. It is a terrible crime. I have never seen anything so deceitful.”
At the appeal hearing, solicitor for Mr Dinca, John Casey said that his client committed the offences to pay off debts due to his gambling addiction.
Mr Casey said that Mr Dinca had no previous convictions before coming to Ireland and had worked for long periods in Germany and Canada.
