Man jailed for defrauding €30,000 from foreign students

A 36-year-old man has been sentenced to nine months imprisonment for defrauding 18 international students of just under €30,000.

Raul Rodriguez Ramirez ran an agency called Travel Now, which specialised in facilitating international students who wanted to study English in Ireland.

He used the money – which was meant to book their language courses in 2020 and 2021- to fund a Mexican restaurant in Dublin. The restaurant failed during the pandemic.

Sentencing had been previously postponed to allow him time to repay some of the money.

The court heard that a further €3,000 had been paid to the court, amounting to a total of €18,050.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told he intended to repay the rest of the money but was not currently in a position to do so.

Judge Orla Crowe noted that the students involved were from countries including Belgium, Mexico, South Korea and Japan.

She said they were young people in their 20s and 30s who were trying to better themselves and said the fraud had “only came to light when they found out they were not registered for a course”.

She said some had lost their life savings, suffered from depression or had to avail of homeless services.

The amounts that were taken from the students varied from €3,800 to €1,292.

Judge Crowe said the defendant was in a significant position of trust over these individuals who were travelling from a long way away.

“They were young non-nationals very far from home, who did not have the resources to cope with the loss of these sums. This would have been well known to the defendant,” she said.

She said Ramirez’s actions constituted a breach of trust and the threshold for a custodial sentence had been met.

She noted his declarations of remorse and the monies that had been paid and sentenced him to 18 months imprisonment with the final nine months suspended.

She ruled that the €18,050 that he had repaid, be divided among the injured parties on a pro rata basis.

‘I saw a little bit of justice’

Some of the students who had been defrauded by Ramirez spoke to the media after his sentencing.

Maria Fernanda Gutierrez said she was relieved.

“It’s a mix of feelings because it is good that I saw a little bit of justice… at least he will have time to think about his actions.”

She said she had only realised she had been defrauded when her chosen language school told her they had not received any application on her behalf.

“I was shocked because my visa at the time was about to expire. So I was in a situation that I didn’t have enough money to pay for another course. I was running out of time here in this country, so it affected me and adds anxiety and stress on me,” said Ms Gutierrez.

She warned that a situation like this could happen again.

“I think that this will happen again and again and again… we should fight to stop this.”

Fiachra Ó Luaín, labour rights officer with the English Language Students’ Union of Ireland, said the sentencing was a “sliver of justice”.

“Escrow accounts could and should be used for any monies coming to English language schools from abroad,” he said.

He called for more regulation of the sector and for the Government to outline what steps they will take to make sure that a fraud like this does not happen again.