Banks that lost millions to convicted thief Michael Lynn hindered the Garda investigation by being reluctant to co-operate, the lead investigator in the case has said, writes Michael O’Farrell.

Detective Inspector Paddy Linehan revealed his team had to get court orders before the lenders Lynn had duped provided their records to the authorities.

“This was a new development in investigations,” he said. “We thought it was a bit ironic - contradictory in many ways. It didn't help and it slowed down the case because access and information was not expedited.”

Lynn, a disgraced Mayo-born solicitor and former property developer, was convicted last week of 10 counts of theft from six banks amounting to almost €18m, after a retrial that began in October.

The jury failed to reach a verdict in a further 11 counts. A previous trial in 2022 ended in a hung jury.

Discussing the case, Det Insp Linehan said the reluctance of financial institutions to co-operate freely marked a change to previous practice, but that it is something now frequently encountered by fraud detectives.

“When I started off in my younger days as a guard, if you were going to an injured party or the victim of a crime, they'd make a statement and they'd hand over whatever information they have.

“If a bank was complaining that an employee or some customer had robbed them, they had no problem making a complaint and handing over things.”

But Det Insp Linehan encountered a different approach when the Lynn case emerged in late 2007, something he attributes to a reliance on legal advice.

“This was the advent where we first started seeing court orders becoming the norm. If we wanted information from a bank who were a complainant, we had to get a court order,” he said.

“Obviously, if you had to get information about a customer - and if the bank was not a complainant - you had to get a court order, but this was the injured party requiring a court order.”

Det Insp Linehan said his team joked at the time that it was like the owner of a burgled home saying: “If you want to come in and examine the scene and dust down the windows you have to get a warrant.”

Despite retiring in June after a stellar 30-year career, Det Insp Linehan was asked to return to assist with Lynn's retrial. He was in court with the prosecution team every day of the trial. He also testified about four planned meetings with gardaí abroad that Lynn made excuses for and failed to attend before he moved to Brazil in 2011.

Escape to Brazil

But it can now be revealed that gardaí received intelligence to suggest Lynn was planning to relocate to Brazil after he absconded in December 2007.

“In early 2008 we got information from an individual to advise us that his plan was to move to Brazil,” Det Insp Linehan confirmed.

“We wrote to the Brazilians at the time to put them on notice because we were aware there was no extradition treaty between Ireland and Brazil. It gave us some comfort that they said they would deal with such a matter if it arose on a reciprocity basis. Having that gave us some comfort and then we went about continuing our investigation,” he added.

At the time Lynn absconded, Det Insp Linehan had just been promoted to take charge of a unit in the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigations - now known as the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau.

Michael Lynn was to be his new unit's first case. Det Insp Linehan had no way of knowing how the case would unwind or that it would take more than a decade-and-a-half to conclude. But he knew it was big.

“The sums of money for Ireland at the time were sizeable,” he said. “This looked like the biggest amount of money potentially ever misappropriated at the time.'

Such a case comes with significant pressure. At the time, the Garda Commissioner was Fachtna Murphy, who had a background in fraud investigations, and solicitor Alan Shatter was the justice minister, but Det Insp Linehan, a gruff, no-nonsense Dubliner, was more than capable of holding his own with his superiors. He does acknowledge, though, that the Lynn case was a priority.

Some of the criticism about the length of time it took to bring charges against Lynn was “unfair”, Det Insp Linehan said.

“We were a busy team,” he said adding that, when he took it over, the office consisted of only himself and two newly qualified detectives with no previous experience of fraud.

“At one stage we had up to 15 persons charged before the higher courts all facing trials - in among that period of time between 2007 and 2014,” he said.

Those cases included that of district court judge Heather Perrin who, as a solicitor, had fleeced her clients to enrich herself before being elevated to the bench.

Other successful prosecutions included former junior ministers Ned O'Keeffe and Ivor Callely, who were convicted for submitting false invoices to claim Dáil expenses. Nevertheless, the Michael Lynn case meant more than most to Det Insp Linehan and his team.

“The investigation was very long and there were many separate investigation files,” he said. “From a focus point of view - keeping yourself focused - it was definitely the hardest.”

Adrenaline rush

When Lynn was arrested in Brazil in 2013, he said it felt like a near decade-long saga was nearly over.

“It's a bit like an adrenaline rush,” Det Insp Linehan said of the moment he got the call. “You suddenly realise this guy will be brought to justice. You are satisfied he had committed a crime that he had to face.”

But ultimately, prosecuting Lynn would not prove to be quite that simple. He fought the extradition even while holed up in a Brazilian prison for four-and-a-half years.

In the process, he successfully had the original tally of 33 assorted charges reduced to just 21 charges of theft. The remaining charges - involving fraud and the use of a false instrument - had to be dropped because they did not correspond to Brazilian laws.

“I was never worried,” Det Insp Linehan said. “But I would say the other charges were easier to prove. They carry the same penalty and, I mean, a document speaks for itself. If it's a forgery it's a forgery. They were something that would have been very strong. But look, the reality is the Brazilians didn't have similar offences and the reality is they were dropped.”

Ultimately, after one of the most extraordinary legal sagas in Irish criminal history, Lynn was extradited in March 2018. There to bring him home was Det Insp Linehan and a team from the Garda extradition unit. The man they met when they took custody of Lynn at the airport in Recife did not behave like a criminal and a seasoned prison inmate.

“I would say he didn't look in any way bothered. In many ways, he came across as a man who was happy to be coming home. He was very chatty and affable on the way home. He talked about his experience in prison in Brazil.”

Frankfurt snowstorm

Another previously unreported aspect of the Lynn saga is that the extradition was jeopardised by poor weather as the so-called 'Beast from the East' pummelled Europe. During a stopover in Frankfurt, the extradition unit became concerned as snowstorm began shutting down EU airports.

Initially, the final leg to Dublin was not going to be allowed take off from Germany or land in Ireland, and no one was quite sure of the legal complexities of detaining Lynn on German soil.

“The extradition unit were very mindful we had to get him home,” recalled Det Insp Linehan. “Dublin Airport was closing down along with a lot of major airports throughout Europe. Our flight wasn't going to be leaving Frankfurt,' Linehan added. “Eventually, whatever was done, Dublin Airport was kept open for his last flight and we landed in Dublin safely,” he said.

As soon as Lynn's flight touched down in Ireland on 1 March 2018, the airport was closed.

The first trial of Michael Lynn in 2022 concluded with a hung jury

Yet between Lynn's consistent legal manoeuvres, built-in logjams at the courts, a delay caused by Covid and an inconclusive first trial, it would be another five years before the former solicitor would be found guilty.

“He made sure that we had to do our job,” said Det Insp Linehan. “He was fighting everything from day one. Even though he offered to meet - to me that was just a smokescreen.”

Lynn has argued otherwise in court, but for Det Insp Linehan there is only one reason he resisted extradition and avoided meeting gardaí before fleeing to Brazil.

“The only reason you wouldn't want to return to face charges is if you know you are going be convicted - that you are guilty of them. “If you've got information to disprove the allegations, I'd be banging down the door of the police station to tell them my story. I wouldn't be waiting for a trial date to have my say. I think the whole reason he went to Brazil was to clearly avoid facing the charges.”

One way or another, Det Insp Linehan was always going to see the case through - even in retirement.

“Absolutely, I put a lot of work and time and extra hours into it. I was the lead investigator on it. I owed it to the State. I owed it to the organisations and the people who made the complaints to see it out.”

At the start of his first trial last year, Lynn made a point of shaking Detective Inspector Paddy Linehan's hand. And last week - just before Lynn was found guilty - Linehan reciprocated the gesture.

Charm personified

“Michael Lynn himself, my personal experience of him, is that he was always very affable and pleasant,” said the former detective. “I'd say he'd be great company. I'd say he'd be the life and soul of a party.”

According to Det Insp Linehan, disarming characteristics such as these are not unusual among criminals. “I think fraudsters, by their nature, have that ability. They are highly intelligent people with a gift of selling themselves in a light that isn't necessarily the real thing and I have come across many people like that in my career.

“Con men and con artists, they're always very plausible. They're always great salesmen,” he said. “They would be very capable and successful people if they hadn't got that chink in the armour where they have to steal monies,” he added.

Det Insp Linehan conceded that Lynn's imaginative defence - that he had arranged several secret deals with bankers who conspired with him in order to deceive the system - was an inspired one.

“You would have to say it was a great defence because it was something we never thought of. “That's not something that arose until he mentioned it, and I think every witness that was called to rebut it showed in their demeanour and their evidence that they [the so-called secret deals] didn't exist.

“I can understand maybe, with the way the banks were, that they could have favoured certain big clients in relation to offering them loans,” Det Insp Linehan said.

But he rubbished the idea of bankers conspiring to lend millions on several properties that they already knew had been pledged to other lenders, for purposes other than those that had been agreed on the loan applications.

“It just made no sense and that was his argument. It was all Walter Mitty stuff to me. “His stories were, I believe, all mistruths and were made up to deflect from his own responsibility.”

Last Wednesday, as Lynn was taken to Cloverhill Prison to await sentencing in January, Det Insp Linehan left the court without looking back. After a three-decade career, 16 of them in fraud, he has hung up his boots for good. For him, Michael Lynn is no longer the one that got away.

Photo: Michael Lynn. (Pic: RollingNews.ie)