https://www.thesun.ie/news/6121305/conman-oap-cab-tax-bill-scammer/CROOK CAUGHT Conman who forced OAP to buy tools for €25k hit with €400k Criminal Assets Bureau tax billEXCLUSIVE
Stephen Breen, Crime Editor
9 Nov 2020, 8:30
A CONMAN who forced an OAP to buy boxes of tools for €25,000 was hit with a huge Criminal Assets Bureau tax bill.
We can reveal Patrick O’Driscoll, 39, handed over €400,000 to the State.
His payment came after investigators established how large amounts of cash were moving through his bank accounts.
Last week, he was jailed for two years along with brother Thomas after targeting a woman, 72, in Cork.
O’Driscoll was one of a number of people identified as associates of rhino horn theft gang the Rathkeale Rovers by Operation Oakleaf in 2010.
Officers then examined his transactions and established he was raking in a fortune from selling and renting power tools to homes across the country.
He was forced to pay the tax bill in 2014 to correspond with the cash at his disposal.
A source said: “He had so much money in his accounts but he wasn’t paying any tax on the income he was receiving.
“O’Driscoll insisted that he was just an ordinary businessman but he was up to all sorts of scams. Once his income was analysed, he was left with no other option but to pay his tax.
“The fact that he was able to hand over €400,000 shows just how much money he had at his disposal. Most of this was earned from targeting vulnerable pensioners through manipulation and coercion.”
Gardai believe O’Driscoll was raking in extra cash from masterminding tarmacking scams across Ireland and also in the UK.
