Suspended sentence for Offaly fuel laundering

A man has been given a two-year suspended sentence for laundering up to six thousand litres of diesel a day in a shed in Offaly. The operation is the biggest of its kind to result in a successful prosecution and conviction so far south of the border, and was described by the State as being "not insignificant." At Tullamore Circuit Court, Liam Murtagh (60), Monaghanstown, Castletown-Geoghegan, Westmeath, admitted laundering the fuel at Barnaboy, Daingean, Offaly, and then delivering it in a specially-adapted tipper truck to a location he refused to name. Evidence was given of a pumping and filtration system used to remove the markers from the diesel, causing a loss in revenue to the state of up to €7,000 per day. Murtagh was on the site when Gardai and revenue officials arrived on December 16, 2010, and Customs and Revenue Inspector Michael Hannon described the operation as "an ongoing process." Counsel for Murtagh said the father-of-six had been approached nine months earlier and was offered the opportunity to make some money. He was described as a vulnerable man, who had lost his job as a lorry driver because of diabetes and the economic downturn and he is now in receipt of a disability allowance.