Man who rented out properties in the Midlands as brothels is jailed

A man who rented out properties in Longford town and Ballymahon under false pretences and used them as brothels has been jailed for nine years.

Ilamar Rodrigues Ribeiro (54) was arrested by investigating gardai from the Garda Human Trafficking and Co-ordination Unit when he returned to Ireland from his native Brazil after a period of time abroad, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard.

Ribeiro, of Rua Nely Augusta Gomes, Goais, Brazil, had been under investigation after a number of rental properties being used as brothels around the country were linked to him, along with nearly €800,000 in proceeds of crime across multiple Irish bank accounts.

He pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 19 sample counts, including using false instruments, inducing landlords to rent properties to him, brothel-keeping and possession of the proceeds of crime. They are offences that carry maximum sentences of between five and 14 years, the court heard.

He also pleaded guilty to possession of child sexual abuse material, known in law as child pornography, which was discovered on his phone when he was arrested at Dublin Airport on November 16, 2023.

The offending on the 60-count indictment spanned from 2010 to 2023, the court heard. Ribeiro has been in custody since his arrest.

Sentencing Ribeiro, Judge Patricia Ryan noted that he has previous convictions for fraud both from France and the UK.

She acknowledged that his plea to the charges were valuable to the State.

Judge Ryan said that many of the offences involved elaborate planning and pre-meditation and said that “considerable sums of money”, a total of €788,982, were involved in the money laundering offence.

The judge noted that Ribeiro accepted ownership of the accounts connected to the money laundering and that the accounts were held in his own name.

In relation to the possession of child abuse material, the judge observed that there was no distribution of the images, but said the images did fall into the most serious form of child abuse material.

Judge Ryan imposed a global sentence of 10 and half years in prison, which involved consecutive terms.

She suspended the final 18 months of the term on strict conditions for three years and backdated the sentence to when Ribeiro first went into custody in November 2023.

At an earlier sentence hearing, Detective Garda Vanessa Stafford of the Garda Human Trafficking and Co-ordination Unit told Fiona McGowan BL, prosecuting, that the charges against Ribeiro were part of a wider investigation after two women came forward to gardaí with allegations of trafficking.

These two women identified rental properties around rural Ireland being used as brothels, while others were linked to Ribeiro's email address and phone number.

When investigating gardaí knocked on the doors of some of these properties, the women who answered identified themselves as sex workers, the court heard.

Gardaí linked 10 rental properties to Ribeiro, who used a different name from a fake Italian passport and fake utility bills to rent out the property from unsuspecting landlords and, in one case, a property agent.

The court heard the landlords told gardaí they would never have rented the property to Ribeiro if they had known what it would be used for.

The properties used as brothels were located in Longford town, Ballymahon, Kildare town, Ballyconnell in Co Cavan, Enniscorthy in Co Wexford, Ballaghadereen in Co Roscommon, Carrick on Shannon in Co Leitrim, and Tullow, Co Carlow. A further two were located in Roscommon town.

The properties were rented out for varying periods of time between 2018 and 2023.

Bank accounts in Ribeiro's name or under his control were forensically analysed and found to contain a total of €788,982 which was deemed to be the proceeds of crime.

The court heard Ribeiro was out of the country for some years between 2021 and 2023, but was arrested upon flying back in November 2023.

The child abuse material on his phone comprised nine images and 16 videos, mostly of pre-pubescent girls and boys being made to engage in sexual activity with adults.

The court heard the images and videos all fell into category one, which is the most serious form of child abuse material.
Padraig Dwyer SC, defending, told the court his client arrived in the country in 2009.

He has two teenage children who reside in Brazil and who he minds at the weekends when he is resident in that country, he said.

Defence counsel said there was no evidence in relation to where in the pecking order Ribeiro had in the organisation, and that he was just one part of it.