Two struck-off solicitors who were jailed last week for siphoning off €400,000 from banks and credit unions appear to be, at first glance, miles away from the kinds of con artists working away at elaborate stings involving fake wigs, bogus driving licences and forged utility bills.
But Det Gda Alan McCarthy, who led the investigation into Keith Flynn and Lyndsey Clarke after a tip-off from bank official Alan Boland, clearly knows otherwise.
Mr Boland, from Bank of Ireland s financial crime unit, had become suspicious of patterns in certain loan applications in late 2017 - and he identified six potentially bogus accounts that resulted in a loss of €32,000.