Former cash-in-transit worker given jail sentence
A former Brinks Allied security worker who admitted his involvement in an €1.8m cash-in-transit theft has been given an eight year sentence by Judge Martin Nolan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Damien Keenan (aged 45) of Oak Green, Royal Oak in Santry pleaded guilty to facilitating the theft of the cash on March 30, 2005 at Kilmore Road, near the Artane roundabout in Coolock.
He also pleaded guilty to his role in supplying the criminal gang with information on the security van’s route and allowing the raiders access by deception to the van.
Judge Nolan imposed an eight-year sentence but suspended the final four on conditions.
Garda James McKeogh told Mr Shane Costelloe BL, prosecuting, that Keenan was driving the armoured Brinks Allied van on the morning on March 30, 2005. A co-worker, Eamonn Byrne, was in the passenger seat of the van which was loaded with €1,889,000 in cash.
The armoured van drove out of Clonshaugh Industrial Estate towards Artane when father-of-two Keenan pulled the van into the Maxol Service Station on the Kilmore Road for refreshments.
Keenan left the van and returned knocking on the side door to alert Byrne he needed to get access to the van.
Byrne disabled the alarm to allow Keenan back into the van. A masked armed raider pushed Keenan from behind into the van and was ordered to drive the van to Killester Sports Centre car park.
Gda McKeogh said a white Ford transit van, driven by a second masked raider, followed the armoured van to the car park.
The two armed and masked raiders ordered Keenan to open the Brinks van door and then they transferred the cash into the van.
“One of the armed raiders forced Keenan and Byrne to hand over their mobile phones and disabled the communications unit in the van,” Gda McKeogh said.
Both Keenan and Byrne were locked in the van.
Due to the non-arrival of the Brinks Allied van to its original destination, Brinks Allied was alerted and subsequently contacted the gardaí who arrived at the scene a short time later.
Following a number of suspicions of Keenan arising from the investigation, as well as the analysis of mobile phone usage and searches on a number of houses in Co Dublin, Keenan was brought in for questioning and subsequently arrested.
Keenan admitted to gardaí his role in the cash-in-transit robbery and said he received €25,000 from the criminals, who were unknown to him, for his involvement.
Gda McKeown said none of the €1.8m has been recovered.
The married man, who has previous convictions, played an “instrumental role in the crime, breached the trust of his employer,” Judge Nolan said, “and made a catastrophic error in the well-planned enterprise.”
