The Indo Daily: Kevin McGeever – The conman ‘with big dreams’ who faked his own kidnapping

Kevin McGeever. Photo: Collins

In January 2013, Kevin McGeever was found dishevelled and emaciated on a country road. He told gardaí he had been kidnapped from his home in Galway and had been held captive in an underground container in complete darkness for eight months. But it was all an elaborate hoax dreamt up by McGeever – and it wasn’t the first time he had tried to pull the wool over people’s eyes.

In 2016 McGeever pleaded guilty at Galway Circuit Criminal Court to wasting garda time by making false statements. A garda told the court he did it to get creditors off his back and his barrister read out an apology on McGeever’s behalf, and described his fantasy abduction as the “aberration” of an elderly a man under stress. McGeever escaped with a two-year suspended sentence.

Conman McGeever had previously been accused of double-selling apartments and selling apartments that he didn’t own. His dubious business activities were traced across three continents.

One investor, Kevin Cooke, who signed up to buy eight apartments for which he paid in instalments, is suing McGeever for €835,000. Another investor, Jim Byrne, secured a €1m judgment against McGeever after paying him €633,000 to buy four apartments – one of which he later learned had been sold to someone else.

How did the Mayo-born swindler trick investors across the world to the tune of millions? And why did he fake his own abduction?

Today on the Indo Daily, Rory Tevlin is joined by Paul Williams, Special Correspondent with the Irish Independent, who covered this incredible case at the time, and is still baffled by it over a decade later.