Two members of an organised crime gang who admitted using cash-trapping machines and stealing money from over 40 AIB ATMs in Dublin last year have been jailed.
A third member of the gang was given a suspended sentence at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Codrin Manoli, 26, from Dundrum in Dublin; Cailin Scintei, 32, from The Park in Citywest in Dublin; and 29-year-old Marius Crisan, from Ormond Way in Swords, pleaded guilty to a total of 28 offences.
AIB contacted gardaí last July after it noticed its ATMs were being damaged.
Forty-three machines in Dublin, Louth, Meath and Kildare were targeted in nine days between 4 July and 12 July last year by an organised crime gang.
The gang put a cash-trapping device into the cash slot, trapping the money before returning later to force it open and steal it.
They stole over €6,000 and caused over €18,000 worth of damage to the cash machines.
On one day, 6 July last year, they hit nine machines in Dublin alone.
Gardaí from Dundrum and the National Economic Crime Bureau set up an operation and caught three men after they had stolen €1,000 cash from an ATM in Blackrock.
Manoli, Scintei and Crisan subsequently pleaded guilty.
Detective Garda Emmett Cooke told the court that the criminal organisation was set up to commit these offences.
Manoli had no ties to Ireland, Scintei has previous convictions for fraud offences in Ireland while Crisan, who the court heard was on the lowest rung of the ladder, has become the father to a baby in Ireland in the last five months.
Det Garda Aoife Lewis said Crisan had identified himself on CCTV, acknowledged he was driving the car when the gang was arrested, had a gambling problem and needed money urgently for his rent.
All three men are originally from Romania and while Crisan has no previous convictions, Manoli has six including convictions in the UK and Scintei has 124.
He had only been released from prison here eight months earlier after he had finished serving a sentence for a similar offence when he was caught again.
Judge Orla Crowe sentenced Cailin Scintei to three years in prison; Codrin Manoli was sentenced to three years in prison with the final six months suspended for two years; and Marius Crisan was given a three-year suspended sentence.
