A former cruise-ship chef who ran five city centre brothels has been sentenced to two years in prison and fined €40,000 by Judge Frank O'Donnell at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Paul Humphreys (63), a native of Cork city centre, was estimated to have earned as much as €780,000 a year from the proceeds of the brothels, prosecuting counse Fergal Foley told Judge O'Donnell.
Judge O'Donnell heard that bank accounts in Cyprus had been frozen and proceedings were under way for the sequestration of Humphreys's other assets.
Humphreys, who now resides in Cyprus, and with an address at Harty Court, Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1, pleaded guilty to knowingly allowing premises to be used for the purpose of prostitution between August 31st, 2005, and March 26th, 2006.
Det Garda Deirdre Conway told Mr Foley that when gardaí arrived to arrest Humphreys they found him in his kitchen counting stacks of money - totalling €30,000 - and tallying it against several worksheets.
Further sums were found in various places in the brothels and a total of €41,646 was recovered during the operation.
When gardaí raided the premises as part of the investigation arising out of Operation Quest, they found meticulous records of money taken and the number of clients.
Det Conway said the brothels were staffed by up to five girls at a time on a shift basis. There were two shifts a day.
The girls were mainly from eastern Europe and charged €150 for a half hour and €250 for a full hour, of which they were allowed to keep half.
She told Mr Foley that in one 10-hour shift in two brothels, there were 47 clients who brought in €8,730.
Det Conway said a call centre took the bookings from 10 mobile numbers, advertised on various internet sites.
A "receptionist" would take a booking and direct the prospective client to whichever brothel was open.
A dual record would then be kept at both the call centre and the brothel.
These were used to tally the accounts when the money was delivered daily.
Det Conway said Humphreys would tell prospective landlords he was a property developer from Cyprus who needed an Irish base and when the deal was done, the premises would be used solely as a brothel.
Seán Gillane, defending, said Humphreys had no involvement with human trafficking and did not employ underage girls or those with a specific vulnerability.
Mr Gillane said the premises were clean and well maintained, the girls were paid in full according to the terms agreed, and nobody had a complaint about Humphreys's personal behaviour at any time during the investigation.
Judge O'Donnell said he disagreed with the maximum fine allowable compared with the amount of money Humphreys would have made.
"It is wrong that he should be walking away with a lot of money in his pocket."
He backdated the start of the two-year sentence to the date of his arrest and suspended the remaining portion of the sentence pending payment of the €40,000 fine.