Posted by 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 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.
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