Michael Lynn is making headlines, for ripping off the banks, to the tune of fifty million euro! yes, thats €50,000,000!!!
What an astronomical rip-off! Not even the Northern Bank robbers got away with that much, and more to the point Michael Lynn will either not face jail, or go to an open prison or some other shamble that is meant to represent ‘imprisonment’. The fact is that crime does actually pay, especially white collar crime.

I have to say ‘hats off’ to Mr. Lynn though… I mean, how the hell did he pull that off? My first suspicion is that part of the way he did it was bank greed, I know what most people have to go through in order to secure finance, there is no way of lying your way through it, however, some people are ‘special’ clients, and I don’t mean they catch a short bus. They get treated differently, endless lines of credit, think Nick Leeson, think Barings Bank (although he was a trader not a borrower).

Now we hear that Michael Lynn is a fugitive. I think I might pursue him myself, where will I look first? Hmmm…. swank hotels in the places where he invested and still has many friends, the one thing that amazes me is that Gardai are not actively chasing him! How much police effort went into chasing the Northern Bank robbers? Is this really any different?

What amazes me the most is the Law Society’s action… erm… pardon me, I meant ‘inaction’ in the whole affair. I would be interested to know if there were any complaints about these solicitors and what they have done, indeed when I wrote to them before with a property related complaint all I got was a lovely three page letter explaining that it was outside of their power to look into the matter. Perhaps a name change to something like ‘Law Group That Kind of Does Something But we Are not Exactly Sure’ …. doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue does it?

Thomas Byrne is another one, but he only robbed €30 million… bless…. Thomas Byrne didn’t do a runner, but why isn’t he in jail? I know a man (we’ll call him Bertie for the sake of this article) and he’s a good for nothing thief, a liar and a cheat – this is not our taoiseach by the way, its a ‘fictional’ character – and Bertie decided to make a withdrawal from his local bank, he did this while wearing a balaclava and carrying a twelve gauge shotgun.

He is now serving a twenty year stretch in Mountjoy Prison and all he got away with was two grand, actually he didn’t get away with much as he was caught, and never got to spend any of it. If you divide the two grand out by twenty years it works out at one hundred a year, so crime doesn’t pay, if it’s not white collar that is.

Here’s a fact, If Michael Lynn never comes back he’ll be sitting pretty. Why? Several reasons, firstly he likely won’t get extradited – and you have to find him first before you can do that. Secondly, if he used money from here to buy abroad then the properties have low or no mortgage and may be rented out and providing a cash flow, likely this is paid into local banks in the respective countries so there is no loss of livelihood because its very difficult to freeze foreign accounts, all he has to do is stay away and he will probably get away with it.

My advice to Thomas Byrne? Do a runner. The Gardai aren’t chasing Lynn and he owes even more than you do. Both of these solicitors flaunted the system by not showing up for court cases as well. I wonder if Bertie (from my earlier story) would have been given the same benefit of doubt?

This doesn’t take into account Mortgage Fraud happening elsewhere. In the USA it is a problem as well but often it requires more collusion to commit, meaning a broker, estate agent, and solicitor are acting together. If you set out to steal something then you might succeed but the difference between being a good for nothing thieving scumbag here versus the USA is that in America you’ll be sent to proper hardcore prison. A place where the likes of Byrne and Lynn could look forward to being some psychotic freaks ‘missus’ for the next twenty years, if they were in the states the term ‘pillow biting’ would feature heavily in their future conversations.
In any case the one really getting it stuck to them are the banks (hey! there’s a first time for everything!)