'Discrepancy of €71,141' Cavan resident gets suspended sentence for laundering stolen bike money

A Cavan resident who was previously jailed for handling 117 high-end bicycles has been given a suspended sentence for laundering the cash associated with it.

Dinas Bimbiras (50) of Maple Drive, Drumgola Wood, Cavan, Co Cavan, had previously pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of 116 of the bicycles in a container at allotments in south Co Dublin in December 2019 and one bicycle at his home in May 2020.

He said he had spent €20,000 buying the bicycles at markets around the outskirts of Dublin for a “long-held ambition” to set up a business to fixing them up and selling them on.

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In October 2022 Judge Martin Nolan jailed Bimbiras for two years after saying he deserved a prison sentence by reason of his wrong-doing. He said without handlers and receivers of stolen property people would be less inclined to steal.

Yesterday (Monday) Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that following the prosecution case for handling the stolen bicycles gardaí analysed Bimbiras’ bank accounts after securing a warrant in August 2020.

Officers compared Bimbiras legitimate income against the lodgements into his bank account and found a discrepancy of €71,141. The State say that this figure represents the proceeds of criminal conduct in relation to the buying and selling of the bicycles in the earlier case.

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Bimbiras pleaded guilty to having the proceeds of crime. He has one additional previous conviction for drink driving.

Leanora Frawley BL, defending, told Judge Nolan that her client was released from prison in February 2024 and has not come to further garda attention.

She said he is working full time since his release from prison. She said he is a good family man and his children are doing well.

Ms Frawley submitted to the court that these charges could have been dealt with at the same time as the previous sentence. She asked the court to accept that Bimbiras is “unlikely to trouble the court ever again”.

Judge Nolan imposed a two year prison term which he suspended in full after he said it would be unjust to impose a custodial term on Bimbiras now.

He said if the money laundering offence had been before the court at the same time as the handling offence, he may have increased Bimbiras’ sentence but he added that it would be unfair to do that at this point in time, considering his behaviour now.

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Judge Nolan ordered that the €71,141 be forfeited to the State.

Garda David Dolan told the sentence hearing in 2022 that on the basis of information not relevant to this investigation, he had obtained a warrant to search a container on an allotment. On opening the container he found it “full to the brim” of neatly stacked bicycles, separated by cardboard.

He arranged for scenes of crime investigators to attend and forensics were taken. His inquiries led him to nominate Bimbiras as a suspect. He was arrested and a further bicycle found at his home.

A national media campaign identified 34 owners of bicycles. The remaining owners were not traced.

Gda Dolan said the bicycles ranged in quality, specifications and value, but the estimated total value of the bicycles found was €50,000. The owners traced for the bicycles were geographically spread countrywide with no discernible pattern.

Defence counsel said Bimbiras, a married father of two, had been in the country since 2001 and worked hard all that time. She said he was a very involved father and his children were doing very well. She said he is the principal breadwinner for his family and they are dependent on him.

She said his plan was to buy cheap, fix them up and sell on for a profit. She said he sold some on Done Deal and had hoped to bring some back to Lithuania for a friend to sell at markets there.

She said he had spent almost the entirety of his savings buying the bicycles, as well as spending money fixing them up. She said he had not been careful enough about the source of the bicycles.

She said the dream he had for his business is gone and even with better safeguards in place he is too frightened to continue.