Theft from place of work

Dr_serious2 · 20-01-2018 10:47am #1

A certain GAA star is currently in court over stealing upwards of 60,000 from the business in which he worked. The money was used to finance a gambling addiction.

Is that a reason? Should we exercise leniency on someone for that reason or is stealing the same regardless of purpose?

Wanderer78 · 20-01-2018 10:52am

If he has a gambling addiction, he clearly needs help, even if he doesn't, and indeed did steal the money, he still needs help. Best of luck to him

yosser hughes · 20-01-2018 10:57am

Dr_serious2 wrote: »

A certain GAA star is currently in court over stealing upwards of 60,000 from the business in which he worked. The money was used to finance a gambling addiction.

Is that an excuse though? Should we exercise leniency on someone for that reason or is stealing the same regardless of purpose?

Have you a link for that?
Some people treat gambling, alcoholism etc. as illnesses therefore excusing the individual of personal responsibility.
Others view people who engage in this behaviour as self indulgent.
Whatever your view,shouldn't the recipient of stolen money have to return it? If it's a booky or casino then they should absolutely have to return that money.

edit: Is this the person you are referring to OP? I don't read the Independent normally.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/director-of-business-says-theft-of-more-than-60k-by-former-galway-hurling-star-a-huge-betrayal-36508986.html

or is it this person?

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/former-galway-footballer-who-stole-more-than-300k-from-employers-to-feed-gambling-habit-avoids-jail-36508520.html

Effects · 20-01-2018 11:02am

He is returning it, his father has already handed over about €30,000 and he's paying off €100 a week himself.
I do feel sorry for Mark Hehir though, he's basically stolen the price of a house, €260,000 and will spend the rest of his life paying it back with nothing to show for it. Personal responsibility aside, bookies are scum.

yosser hughes · 20-01-2018 11:48am

Effects wrote: »

He is returning it, his father has already handed over about €30,000 and he's paying off €100 a week himself.
I do feel sorry for Mark Hehir though, he's basically stolen the price of a house, €260,000 and will spend the rest of his life paying it back with nothing to show for it. Personal responsibility aside, bookies are scum.

Shouldn't the gambling companies that essentially received stolen money have to face some sanction too? They should have to repay the money also. It could be used to pay court fees and compensate the businesses for distress caused. Did anyone lose their jobs because of these thefts.Businesses can close or have to cut jobs to stave off closure.

Effects · 20-01-2018 3:44pm

yosser hughes wrote: »

Shouldn't the gambling companies that essentially received stolen money have to face some sanction too?

How are they supposed to know where the money is coming from?

Guy:Incognito · 20-01-2018 3:49pm

yosser hughes wrote: »

Shouldn't the gambling companies that essentially received stolen money have to face some sanction too? They should have to repay the money also. It could be used to pay court fees and compensate the businesses for distress caused. Did anyone lose their jobs because of these thefts.Businesses can close or have to cut jobs to stave off closure.

Assuming he didn't use every single penny to gamble, should Tesco , dunnes, Aldi, Lidl or wherever he does his shopping have to pay a bit too?
The bookies didn't take a stolen computer from his job as payment for a debt , so no, it's not up to them to be responsible for where he got the money. To expect them to be would be ridiculous.

Wanderer78 · 20-01-2018 3:51pm

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Assuming he didn't use every single penny to gamble, should Tesco , dunnes, Aldi, Lidl or wherever he does his shopping have to pay a bit too?
The bookies didn't take a stolen computer from his job as payment for a debt , so no, it's not up to them to be responsible for where he got the money. To expect them to be would be ridiculous.

behind every bad borrower, theres a bad lender!;)

yosser hughes · 20-01-2018 3:57pm

Effects wrote: »

How are they supposed to know where the money is coming from?

The court found that he spent the money online with Ladbrokes and Boyle. Fairly easy to track that spending.
Obviously the bookies don't know where money is coming from at the time, but they do know now as a result of the case and conviction

Guy:Incognito · 20-01-2018 4:00pm

yosser hughes wrote: »

The court found that he spent the money online with Ladbrokes and Boyle. Fairly easy to track that spending.
Obviously the bookies don't know where money is coming from at the time, but they do know now as a result of the case and conviction

How would that add up to them being responsible though?

ahnowbrowncow · 20-01-2018 4:38pm

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

How would that add up to them being responsible though?

It should be their responisiblity, they should have to repay the employer the money was stolen from and then it's up to them to recoup the money from the footballer.

Same as if you or I were to buy a stolen car unknowingly, the guards would remove the car from us and return it to the rightful owner.

Felexicon · 20-01-2018 4:43pm

ahnowbrowncow wrote: »

It should be their responisiblity, they should have to repay the employer the money was stolen from and then it's up to them to recoup the money from the footballer.

Same as if you or I were to buy a stolen car unknowingly, the guards would remove the car from us and return it to the rightful owner.

How would the bookie recoup their money then? The person would have no legal obligation to pay it.

Guy:Incognito · 20-01-2018 5:02pm

ahnowbrowncow wrote: »

It should be their responisiblity, they should have to repay the employer the money was stolen from and then it's up to them to recoup the money from the footballer.

Same as if you or I were to buy a stolen car unknowingly, the guards would remove the car from us and return it to the rightful owner.

Not a hope should it be their responsibility.

If you put a car up for sale and a lad arrived with10 grand to buy it. Then 6 months later you see on the news the guy robbed a bank that morning to pay for the car, would you be ringing the bank to ask who to make the cheque out to?

What if instead of the bookies he bought a Ferrari, would it be up to the garage to pay the company back? Or , again, should the shops and supermarkets he shops in have to pay them back too? Maybe the pubs he drank in during the time too?

Should every business providing goods and services ask for proof of where you got any money you want to spend with them?

Mysterypunter · 21-01-2018 6:35pm

Heavily involved in the GAA. Does that mean the law doesn't apply to him?

diomed · 29-03-2018 12:04am

These people are terrible gamblers.
The same with Tony O'Reilly of An Post, Gorey.
No research, just lump on. Plenty more money if they lose.

Bobeagleburger · 01-04-2018 8:41am

diomed wrote: »

These people are terrible gamblers.
The same with Tony O'Reilly of An Post, Gorey.
No research, just lump on. Plenty more money if they lose.

Like the majority of gamblers so!

diomed · 02-04-2018 1:39pm

RoboKlopp wrote: »

Like the majority of gamblers so!

Perhaps I am different. I research before betting, and think others do also.
I have got downloads of all my transactions over many years from the bookmaker and the exchange where I bet. Both were in profit.

I was talking about compulsive gamblers.

Tony O'Reilly of An Post, Gorey, lost 1.75 million stolen from An Post.
This is part of my post on another forum about his book.

"Examples of rhe bets:
Negri Sembilan, a football team in Malasia, Balestier Khalsa in Singapore, Breidablik Kopavogur in Iceland, Trenkwalder Admira in Austria, under-20 team Kasimpasa in Turkey, the Belarus under-19s, tennis players Charalampos Kapogiannis and Daniel Munoz de la Nava, a horse called Shoulhaveknownbetter tailed off at Taunton."

and
"Before this day is done, he will lose €462,000
Out of thirty-one bets placed, twenty-nine of them will lose."

Bobeagleburger · 02-04-2018 2:02pm

diomed wrote: »

Perhaps I am different. I research before betting, and think others do also.
I have got downloads of all my transactions over many years from the bookmaker and the exchange where I bet. Both were in profit.

I was talking about compulsive gamblers.

Tony O'Reilly of An Post, Gorey, lost 1.75 million stolen from An Post.
This is part of my post on another forum about his book.

"Examples of rhe bets:
Negri Sembilan, a football team in Malasia, Balestier Khalsa in Singapore, Breidablik Kopavogur in Iceland, Trenkwalder Admira in Austria, under-20 team Kasimpasa in Turkey, the Belarus under-19s, tennis players Charalampos Kapogiannis and Daniel Munoz de la Nava, a horse called Shoulhaveknownbetter tailed off at Taunton."

and
"Before this day is done, he will lose €462,000
Out of thirty-one bets placed, twenty-nine of them will lose."

I'd say most people lose at gambling. The percentage that consistently make profit is quite low I would say.

The compulsive guys will always lose, it's an addiction for them. They are a bookies dream.

_Brian · 02-04-2018 2:07pm

Few things strike me about this.

Firstly, theft is theft and he should be prosecuted for it.

Secondly, gambling needs to be looked at for its negative impact on people. I’d be all for hiking up the tax on it too.

diomed · 02-04-2018 2:51pm

_Brian wrote: »

Few things strike me about this.
Firstly, theft is theft and he should be prosecuted for it.
Secondly, gambling needs to be looked at for its negative impact on people. I’d be all for hiking up the tax on it too.

The person who stole €1.75 million spent a few years in prison, much of that was in an open prison. Many days he could leave the open prison.

I enjoy gambling. I make a profit.
If someone makes 5% profit on gambling then a 5% tax reduces that to nil.
All you will do with a tax increase is remove the people who are good gamblers because they will realise it is no longer profitable.
You will be left with the compulsive gamblers who do not look at profitability.

I bought a horse recently. She had a foal. Next year hopefully she will have another foal. With luck I can sell these, perhaps at a profit.
This is another gamble.
All business is a gamble. It is a gamble for the owner who puts their assets at risk. If you like to make it sound good you can call it investing.

Perhaps I am different in that I think gambling educates people to assess risk.
In the last financial crisis people bought property with 100% mortgages (or higher).
In 2006 I tried to persuade a buyer that borrowing €500k with a 100% mortgage was a poor move.
Could they pay 10% mortgage interest if rates increased? What would the you if they lost their job and house prices fell 40%+?
I was told I was living in cuckoo land. That would never happen.
People looked down on me when I bet on a horse were remortgaging their houses two or three times to release cash to spend on new cars, decking, garden landscaping, and holidays.

How about bringing in a big tax on people taking out mortgages to stop them gambling stupidly?

sabat · 02-04-2018 4:09pm

There are cases like these in the news almost every week and I assume many more exist that were quietly covered up or are yet undiscovered. It's long past time that bookies started being held to account-if a getaway car drops a bag of cash after a robbery the person picking it up doesn't get to keep it. I propose an extension of the KYC requirements to show proof of the legitimacy of the source of the funds if a gambler goes above a certain amount- say €10k.

mickdw · 02-04-2018 4:14pm

But take a random gambler losing 30k per year. They could have a legit income of 30k and be stealing 30k also. Who is to say they didn't gamble with the legit funds and pay for his car, house and food with stolen funds.
To claim the bookie should be liable to return money is just the silliest thing I've ever heard.

ahnowbrowncow · 02-04-2018 4:44pm

mickdw wrote: »

But take a random gambler losing 30k per year. They could have a legit income of 30k and be stealing 30k also. Who is to say they didn't gamble with the legit funds and pay for his car, house and food with stolen funds.
To claim the bookie should be liable to return money is just the silliest thing I've ever heard.

No, you're being silly.

Someone with a legit income of €30k would not be able to gamble €30k unless they live on fresh air. Even if they had an income of €60k it would be highly suspicious, their take home pay for the year would be €42k and they're gambling €30k? If he got it from somewhere else or had savings then that should be quite easy for them to prove, providing it was legally obtained.
This is exactly why bookies need to be accountable as this scenario would be easily prevented with the most basic due diligence checks.

Your everyday business has to carry out due diligence checks to make sure that their VAT registered customers and suppliers are legitimate and not exposing them to fraud otherwise they would also be exposed to penalties.

Banks have to report suspicious transactions, why shouldn't bookies bear some responsibility?

OldMrBrennan83 · 02-04-2018 4:47pm

This post has been deleted.

diomed · 03-04-2018 4:58am

They load iesnare snooping software onto the punter's betting device (in my case my PC).
You visit their website, you get a hidden present.
In my case it was hidden in an e-mail they sent me with details I had requested of my transactions.
As soon as I opened their e-mail the snooping software downloaded onto my PC.
When I found it a few days later I blocked it.
I had not used them for betting for about ten years, except for very small bets about once a year.

Bookmakers target punters, with losing punters a big target.
This is an extract from the book written by the An Post employee who stole and lost €1.75 million.

"Starting with a deposit of €4,000 at lunchtime on the Friday, over the course of the weekend he lands several enormous winners, mostly accumulators that return very large five-figure and even the odd six figure sums.
... by the early hours he has increased this to €462,000. He has forty-six winning bets out of 116 placed. He is starting to feel invincible again.
The next morning, in the office, he has visitors.
It is two men from the audit team in Dublin .... *
... he receives a phone call from Paddy Power. Not just from someone representing the Paddy Power organisation, but the man who tells him he is indeed Paddy Power, who mainly speaks for that corporation in its dealings with the media ...
... if he wants to have a bet this morning, he can phone in, and he can do this until the website is running again.
... when Tony 10 starts up again, he is having no winners.
Before this day is done, he will lose €462,000
Out of thirty-one bets placed, twenty-nine of them will lose.
It is carnage."

Mysterypunter · 22-04-2018 11:09am

The postman is on the racing post today, same aul rubbish. A one trick pony without a trick. 18 months for nearly 2 million, and then a Paul Merson act. Conman

Ultimate Seduction · 22-04-2018 11:15am

If this was Anto from north Dublin funding his drug addiction, would people be as quick to blame the his drug dealer and not the thief? Doubt it very much. The bookies didn't steal anything, he willingly gave them the money.

I'd say there is plenty nasty things swept under the carpet because there good GAA lads and coaches.

Theft from place of work

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