Lyndsey & Keith In the summer of 2017, account managers in Bank
Of Ireland started noticing a strange pattern on six different accounts. The accounts belong to six
different people. But while performing a closer examination, Alan Boland, part of the bank’s
financial crimes unit, noticed that there was a very specific type of spelling mistake in all
six accounts. This was strange because 6 complete strangers supposedly had opened these accounts.
Boland had just uncovered the work of Lyndsey Clarke and Keith Flynn.
They had managed to avoid the Irish authorities for many, many years.
Political Dreams
Lyndsey Clarke had big aspirations. As a political candidate running for her local
council in Ireland, she had made sure the media knew about her since day one. She approached a
local newspaper to introduce herself and let voters know she was in for the fight.
Running for the exceptionally conservative Fine Gael party, Clarke built the image of a
hard-working mother that could relate to the problems many in her community were facing.
This relatable image was pushed forward when,
in 2014, she took a picture with the then Irish Prime Minister– Enda Kenny.
Luck seemed to be on Clarke’s side, with even a famous tarot reader claiming it was written in
the stars for her to win- so obviously, victory was pretty much set in stone.
Unfortunately, there must’ve been an error in her tarot reading– Clarke scored only
239 votes in her Cork City Council run in 2014. Yes, that’s as meager as it sounds.
The fact that her party had little to no presence in her area and that she
was competing against 12 other contenders didn’t help either.
What really gave way for Clarke to become famous was what local police found in her
apartment merely four years after her political attempt– while serving a search warrant,
authorities found several laptops, wigs, scanners and a safe with almost $99,000 in cash.
Added to these strange findings were a couple of driver’s licenses– and that’s licenses with an
‘s’, because there was 21 of them–, 19 credit cards and other various forms of financial
documents. How were Clarke and her, Keith Flynn, able to score all of this and lay below the radar?
An Odd Pattern By summer 2017, as we
had mentioned at the beginning of the video, Alan Boland of the financial crimes unit began noticing
that there was the exact same spelling mistake in all six accounts. After closer examination, Bank
Of Ireland realized they were missing €32,000. The bank immediately contacted the police in Cork,
Ireland. A further in-depth investigation uncovered a network of false identities –60
in total– that Clarke and her partner Keith Flynn had used to open a surprising 80 bank accounts.
The couple had bought off Personal Public Service Numbers from several homeless individuals for €100
each. Using their identities, the pair went on to open accounts in local banks and credit unions.
With the accounts in place, the couple took out multiple loans for hundreds of thousands
of euros. When it was confirmed that the couple had scammed banks for €390,000 in bank loans,
police placed both Flynn and Clarke under surveillance. But this would prove to be
a challenge since Flynn’s company was registered in two different properties
across the country– one in Cork and the other all the way up in Dublin.
When police raided Flynn’s Altus Apartments property in Cork,
they found several electronic devices including laptops, scanners, a worrying variety of fake
driver’s licenses and a document shredder. They also got a hold of four digital passports,
used to open bank accounts online. As if it weren’t enough, 31 different SIM
cards and a number of cellphones were also inside Flynn’s apartment.
Undetected Their scheme seemed
to be perfect and lowkey. The couple would open a bank account using a fake ID and get a small loan,
typically not more than €12,000. After a while, they would use all of the available money,
leave the account with little to no cash in it and make a few direct debit payments.
By the time the bank or credit union would notice they had missed some payments for
their loan and with the account at zero, the company would send the case to their bad debt
department. Here the accounts would be closed because of the minuscule debt.
All of the accounts were opened using fake names. Both of them went all the way when
it came to forging documents to put on a trustworthy image: meticulously designed
payslips with fake company logos were all part of the scam. Flynn and Clarke also used phony
energy bills pretending to have been made by a local energy provider. Not to mention the
collective 72 bills from telephone companies they used to open some of their bank accounts.
The 30-plus fake driver’s licenses they had in Flynn’s apartment were
bought from a website called Flawless Fake IDs. The pair
scour the website for pictures of people who were somewhat similar to them.
To get their hands on different addresses all the time, Clarke and Flynn would look
up properties in the area that were listed for sale or rent, call them pretending to be
the former tenants and ask if they could let them know whenever they received new mail.
With this, they were able to score multiple addresses and names. The system they had
put in motion was so seemingly flawless, it looked like it would’ve been impossible for
them to get caught– it was just bad luck that crept in on them.
Upbringing Growing up in
a small suburb just outside the city of Cork, Keith Flynn had already garnered somewhat of a
reputation for himself. Ballintemple, Flynn’s home town, is a place where everyone knows each other,
so it comes as no surprise people had a lot to say about Keith– everyone seemed
to love his family but not him. He was described as odd and very quiet; the kind
of attitude that stood out in a place where everyone was known to be warm and friendly.
After high school, Keith went on to study law at University of London, and left college by 1998.
Somehow it took about six years for Keith to get a trainee position at a Cork law firm. Added to
this, he was also a chef at a local restaurant, but felt the experience was beneath him.
By 2006, Keith created Flynn & Co., his general practice law firm. A few years after that,
Keith’s next business, ADR Ireland, was born– but little is known about this company. Flynn’s
legal activities during this period were steady but somewhat shady– a clear red flag.
Flynn’s constant business endeavors were related to his personality. Numerous people that knew him
said he was constantly looking for something different and better– he was never satisfied.
For the most part, Flynn had the look of someone who was doing well professionally: clean shaved,
dressed sharply and with a sociable quality that indicated he was remarkably different.
An image that differed a lot from the Keith Flynn that became known
in the media. Unfortunately, as per the descriptions given to the media,
it seemed most people that knew him weren’t very fond of him.
Falling Down Clarke started working with Flynn
in 2012– first as a lawyer to later on become a partner in the firm. Funnily enough, both of
them attended law school at University of London but at different times. Lyndsey’s background was
sort of well known in Ireland. Her mother, Mary Buckley Clarke, is a renowned poet and songwriter.
While she’s an only child, her father Terrance, a London native, was a notorious campaigner
for the children's unit at Cork University Hospital where her mother used to be a nurse.
It comes as no surprise that, given her proficient legal abilities,
Clarke became heavily interested in the political sphere. Her stint at the local council elections
in 2014 garnered her a consideration for selection in that election. Unfortunately it never happened.
That same year, she focused her efforts on Keith’s company and eventually became
a partner. This union seemed to be destined for great things, given how both of them came from
considerably well respected backgrounds and were reported to be successful in their legal business.
By the time both of them had executed their astronomical scam,
they were a couple through and through; each of them had divorced their former partners.
Their relationship had transformed itself from a professional affair into a blossoming romance.
When the investigation was put in motion, Flynn and Clarke decided to get married.
A Mirage As expected,
the clean image of renowned lawyers they had created was only a façade.
Multiple clients complained about the way the company handled their business.
We’re not sure what they expected from a law firm that writes discount wills on Groupon.
Additionally, Flynn & Co. was noted as hiring people under the JobBridge government initiative,
a program in which a local company gets financial incentives for hiring a person that
has been unemployed for more than 12 months placing them as interns for 6 to 9 months.
Their main interest behind this was that they wouldn’t have to pay them, something
Flynn seemed to be very happy about. Flynn & Co. had become the Wal-Mart of Irish legal firms.
In December 2016, a few years after Clarke entered the company, Flynn & Co. was suspended
from practicing as attorneys. Later on, the Law Society of Ireland accused them
of misconduct in the workplace at a disciplinary tribunal in July 2018– they were found guilty.
The charges, presented in October that year, outlined how the company allowed a
€40,000 deficit on a client’s account in November 2016, when they had allegedly
ceased to practice as a law firm. This sum added to an overall €80,000 deficit.
The Law Society went on to state how Flynn & Co. willingly allowed the two transfers for €10,000
and €16,000 respectively from another client’s account to be used to reduce the deficit on the
first client’s account. As if it weren’t enough, authorities also found that the company had
transferred €29,000 in client funds to their own accounts in two separate payments that same month.
All of this happened while the practice was supposed to be closed. With this information,
the Irish High Court ordered the pair to pay the applicant’s measured costs
based on the lack of concern and regard they had shown for
their client’s money and business. The High Court qualified their law firm as
“chaotic” and noted several breaches in integrity on multiple occasions.
The Law Society noted on several occasions there were clear suspicions of money laundering and
they sent reports to the Irish Police. Given the extent of their investigation,
it is believed that Clarke and Flynn were already well on their way with their financial scam before
Bank of Ireland made their initial investigation regarding the six suspicious accounts.
Aftermath Alan Boland did the
detailed work of checking in on the accounts Flynn and Clarke had created. Boland was the
one who noted the strange pattern of spelling mistakes. With this in mind, he listened in
closely on voice recordings and other data they had and did a crosscheck to discover the fraud.
Although the crime was pretty clear, there hasn’t been sufficient information to confirm exactly
what the couple did with the money they stole. Speculations about their lifestyle,
with many believing that the rents in their respective apartments are high
enough for them to spend a big chunk of the more than €390,000 they scammed away.
While there was the popular belief that the couple had moved their money overseas
to Cayman or Luxembourg, no one’s really sure. Someone close to the case during the time of
discoveries said they were an extravagant couple that embodied the image of millionaires with a
luxurious lifestyle, having private vacations in Croatia and riding motorbikes in Monocco.
When the full extent of the investigation was revealed, Clarke and Flynn pleaded guilty and
fully cooperated with authorities. The court even went as far as stating they had helped
the government save a lot of money by not having to go to trial in court–
but the money they stole from banks and credit unions still qualified this as a major crime.
Most of the banks and credit unions were unaware of the scam– the issue
even started a public conversation in Ireland about what actions have been
put forward to avoid future scams similar to this.
And while a lot of people have praised Bank of Ireland for their diligent investigation,
data protection laws in the country have prevented many financial institutions
from having access to cross reference data that could potentially avoid scams of this magnitude.
In the course of a year and a half, Flynn and Clarke were able to illegally score over €394,000.
In contrast, it has been reported that the couple has suffered emotionally
and financially as a consequence of their legal situation. Lyndsey had been battling
with serious bouts of depression while Keith was ultimately declared bankrupt after being
denied license to practice law in Ireland– he had been working as a chef prior to judgment.
Irish law finally sentenced the pair to jail in different ways: Clarke was to spend two years
behind bars while Flynn would be in prison for four. Judge Sean O’Donnabhain, in charge
of the fraudsters, said he was handing Keith his four-year sentence after taking into consideration
the way he cooperated with authorities during the investigation and his already stated guilty plea.
Clarke was given a lighter sentence after she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud.
It was also discovered that the couple had stashed away over €100,000 in cash which was
to be returned in equal parts to the financial institutions they had robbed. Most of it would
go to Bank of Ireland since they were the ones who initially discovered the scam.
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