Cork-based woman who thought she was engaged to US marine she had never met allowed her bank to be used to launder stolen money

A romance scam victim, who thought she was engaged to a US marine she had never met, has been given a suspended sentence for allowing her bank to be used to launder €17,000 in stolen money.

Alida Kuiken (50), with an address at Kilrussane, Knockraha in Co. Cork, was before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court today, where she had pleaded guilty to allowing €16,997 in crime proceeds to be transferred through her on September 27 and 28, 2022.

The court heard that a building firm ed gardaí days later, after staff realised that an invoice they had paid had been received from an email address that did not fully match that of the company they thought they were paying.

Detective Garda Mark Deasey told the court that documentation from Bank of Ireland led gardaí to interview Kuiken in July 2024.

The court heard that Kuiken, who is from The Netherlands, had moved to Ireland in the late 2000s, after falling in love with the country while on holidays here. She has no previous convictions.

Det Gda Deasey said that she accepted full responsibility for allowing her bank to be used for the transfer of the money.

“She said she was in a relationship with a male and he asked her,” he said.

Gardai did not believe she was involved in emailing the fraudulent invoice.

The detective agreed that gardaí had seized Kuikin’s diary during a search in February 2024, and a copy was handed into court. A number of goals had been written on a page, including that she would pay back the money, find a husband who was a Christian, set up a pet store and get her own place to rent.

He agreed that up until the point she was arrested, she had no real appreciation of what she had been caught up in.

She told gardaí that she had transferred the money into another and had sent it by Bitcoin onto the person with whom she believed she was in a relationship.

She said that she understood that the money was being transferred from friends of his family to relatives he had overseas. She was asked if she thought this was unusual and she agreed she did, and said she had indicated this at the time. This was why her plea was accepted on the basis of recklessness.

The garda accepted that her lack of understanding about what she was involved in was borne out in her correspondence with the bank, after her was blocked immediately following the transfer. She had said she believed that the money had gone to its intended recipient.

The defendant explained that she had met the man on an online dating website in February 2021, but had never met him in person throughout the entirety of the three-year relationship.

Gardaí had seen an email to Kuiken’s elderly father dated April 19t, 2021 in which the fraudster had purported to be a US marine and identified himself as her committed fiancé.

She accepted in interview she had been utterly naive and said she felt pathetic in the aftermath. She said that final was made by the fraudster around this time, indicating he was going to retire.

Kuiken told gardaí that she thought he had taken advantage of her. She said that he had taken a long time to build up her trust and had used it to manipulate her.

Kuiken, who works in istrative , but is currently between contracts, had gathered €7,000 for the victim.

Judge Orla Crowe noted that there was a suggestion in the documentation that she had paid €50,000 to the man over time, and the court heard that she had made a report to the federal authorities in the US in relation to fraud.

Her barrister said that Kuiken had been unable to visit her elderly parents in the Netherlands as a result of this case. While her mother knows she was in a relationship with a man who, it transpired was a fraudster, she is so deeply ashamed that she has not told them she is before the courts; it would cause them too much distress.

'EASILY MANIPULATED'

“She was easily manipulated by a man she believed she was in a relationship with,” said counsel. 

“I submit this is recklessness in its truest sense.” Judge Crowe accepted that the man had spent a year or more gaining Kuiken's trust before this offence.

“She was certainly subjected to a long period of manipulation,” the judge noted.

Judge Crowe said that such a long relationship with a person Kuiken never met did speak to ‘a certain level of naivety’.

“Criminals are very good at organising schemes and finding suitable people to carry out schemes in order to extract money in sophisticated ways,” the judge said. 

“Where she is a victim of the organisation of the theft, she did allow her to be used in an utterly implausible story.” 

FDAYShe said that Kuiken was not a young person, but an adult with long life experience. She said that a lot of crimes of this nature had been publicised, that there were red flags, and it was undoubtedly suspicious.

“She was utterly reckless in relation to her own affairs and thus played a part,” the judge said.

Noting that the maximum penalty is 14 years, she imposed a one-year sentence on the 50-year-old but suspended it in full.