Brothel-keeper fails to have term reduced

A Brazilian brothel-keeper who ran a network across rural Ireland, laundered €800,000 in various bank accounts, and was found in possession of child abuse material, has failed to have his sentence reduced on appeal.

Ilamar Rodrigues Ribeiro (55) was arrested by investigating gardaí from the Garda Human Trafficking and Co-ordination Unit when he returned to Ireland from his native Brazil after a period of time abroad.

He had been under investigation after a number of rental properties being used as brothels around the country were linked to him, along with nearly €800,000 in the proceeds of crime across numerous Irish bank accounts.

Ribeiro, of Rua Nely Augusta Gomes, Goais, Brazil, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 19 sample counts, including using false instruments, inducing landlords to rent properties to him, brothel-keeping and possession of the proceeds of crime.

Ribeiro also pleaded guilty to the possession of child sexual abuse material, known in law as child pornography, on his phone when he was arrested at Dublin Airport on November 16, 2023.

The child abuse material on his phone comprised nine images and 16 videos, mostly of pre-pubescent girls and boys being made to engage in sexual activity with adults. The offending on the 60-count indictment spanned from 2010 to 2023.

In March 2025, Judge Patricia Ryan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court imposed a global sentence of 10 and a half years in prison, which involved consecutive terms, with 18 months suspended.

Ribeiro appealed the severity of the sentence on Monday of this week. His lawyers argued that the court should have considered suspending the sentence imposed for the possession of child abuse material because he had no previous convictions for similar offences. His senior counsel Cathleen Noctor said the judge did not explain why she was imposing a consecutive sentence for this offence.

However, Fiona McGowan BL, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said the child abuse material charge was “very separate and distinct” to the other matters.

In dismissing Ribeiro’s appeal, Mr Justice Paul Burns said the offending relating to the child pornography charge was of an “entirely different nature” from the other offences. He said the material found on Ribeiro’s phone was described as the “highest and most serious on the scale”.

The court was effectively being asked to impose no sentence for “this very serious offence”, the judge said, and it was “not prepared to do so”.

He said the judge was “well within her discretion” in imposing the sentence that she did in respect of this matter.

Ribeiro’s sentencing hearing was told the charges against him were part of a wider investigation after two women came forward to gardaí with allegations of trafficking.

These two women identified some rental properties around rural Ireland which were being used as brothels, while others were linked to Ribeiro’s email address and phone number, the court heard. When investigating gardaí knocked on the doors of some of these properties, the women who answered identified themselves as sex workers. Gardaí linked 10 rental properties to Ribeiro. Detectives discovered that he used a different name from a fake Italian passport and fake utility bills to rent properties from unsuspecting landlords and, in one case, a property agent. The properties used as brothels were located in Ballyconnell in Co Cavan; Longford town and Ballymahon in Co Longford; Kildare town; Enniscorthy in Co Wexford; Ballaghaderreen in Co Roscommon, Carrick on Shannon in Co Leitrim, and Tullow, Co Carlow. A further two were located in Roscommon town.

The properties were rented out for varying periods of time between 2018 and 2023.

Sentencing Ribeiro, Judge Ryan noted that he has previous convictions for fraud both from France and the UK.

She noted many of the offences involved elaborate planning and pre-meditation, while “considerable sums of money”, a total of €788,982, were involved in the money laundering offence.