A County Cavan man has appeared in court on charges of selling his grandmother on the black market.
Thomas O’Shea (37) of Watery Road Cootehill County Cavan appeared at the Central Criminal Court today on charges relating to human trafficking.
O’Shea is accused of selling his seventy-five-year-old granny on the human-trafficking black-market.
Garda Evidence
Detective Inspector Charles Downes told the court that O’Shea was identified and apprehended after a painstaking Garda investigation and covert sting operation.
“We had been made aware by Interpol that a suspiciously large number of grannies had gone missing in the Cavan area.
“While conversely a significant amount of Irish grannies were reported as doing housework in Thailand, this raised our suspicions.” The detective told the judge.
Acting on the Interpol intelligence the Cavan Detective Branch carried out an exhaustive search through the internet.
“We would have got the computer boys at Garda HQ in Dublin to investigate,” the detective said.
“But that would have cost a bloody fortune, so we had young Garda Jimmy Murphy spend a few hours on his laptop.” He explained.
“What was very suspicious,” the Garda went on to explain “was that no grannies had been reported missing — it appears that a well-organised ‘granny-smuggling ring’ was operating in Cavan and a large amount of money was changing hands.”
The Sting
“We set up a sting operation and got young Jimmy Murphy — who understands this internet thingy — to pretend he was a wealthy Thai businessman wanting to buy an Irish granny to work in Thailand.
“Young Garda Jimmy soon made contact with the accused and a price of five-hundred-euro was agreed.
The accused O’Shea was arrested in the shopping centre car-park and his granny was found in the boot of the car.
Defence
In his defence, O’Shea told the court that now that he was married and had a young bride to cook and clean for him the Granny was superfluous and “they can be expensive to feed.”
“I heard of these Thai businessmen who were willing to pay big bucks for an Irish granny who could cook, clean and keep house for them on the cheap. So I answered the add.” He told the Judge.
The International Dimension
Superintendent Claude Gistange of Interpol gave the court some background on the international scale of the trafficking.
“It appears Judge, that Cavan men who no longer wish to support their grannies are prepared to sell them for sometimes as little as five-hundred-euros.
“The grannies are then smuggled to Thailand where their passports are taken and they are slowly forced to listen to Daniel O Donnell compilation albums until they become addicted. After that, there is no escape for them. It’s very sad really.” He concluded.
Judge O’Driscoll — himself a Cavan man — sentenced O’Shea to a three-week community service order on the charge of granny-trafficking.
On the separate charge of forcing his granny to listen to Daniel O Donnell, the judge imposed the maximum allowable sentence of a fifteen-year confinement with no leave for appeal.
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