The Dublin criminal, George "The Penguin" Mitchell, has been sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment for masterminding a £5 million computer supplies robbery from an Irish truck in the Netherlands.
A judicial spokesman said that, unless Mitchell staged "a breakout or starts a riot", he should be out of prison within 14 months. According to Dutch law, he is automatically entitled to have a third of the term remitted for good behaviour and the sentence starts from the date of his arrest last March.
The driver of the lorry, Thomas Massey, was sent to jail for 18 months on a charge of allowing his load to be stolen. Judges ruled that six months of his sentence be suspended, provided he committed no further crime in the Netherlands over a two-year period. Massey could be due for release by Christmas.
Three Dutch nationals received sentences ranging from 200 hours' community service to 16 months' imprisonment, at Haarlem Court, near Amsterdam.
At his trial two weeks ago, Mitchell (47), of Palmerstown, Dublin, was described as the criminal mastermind behind the plot to steal a £5 million consignment from a lorry en route from the Co Kildare plant of Hewlett Packard to a Dutch customer.
The court heard that the plot came unstuck when the Garda launched a joint operation with Dutch police. Mitchell, Massey and three Dutch nationals were followed by an undercover Dutch surveillance team. Police swooped as the lorry was being stripped of its load at a deserted warehouse close to Amsterdam Airport.
Mitchell had claimed he was set up by gardai. But the presiding Dutch judge, Mr T.S. Roel, said yesterday the court was satisfied the Irish operation leading to the arrests was perfectly legal.
The court was convinced, he added, that Mitchell was the ringleader in the plan to involve the truck driver and recruit others in bringing off the robbery.
Mitchell showed no sign of emotion throughout the hearing and shrugged his shoulders when told his three mobile phones were being confiscated.
Getting up quickly from his seat, on being told he could go, he said loudly: "Thank you very much" to the judges, before he was taken out by an armed guard.
In Dublin last July, the Criminal Assets Bureau secured a High Court judgment for £103,350 against Mitchell. In 1988 he was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for the theft of cattle drench worth more than £100,000. According to Garda sources, he was worth more than £10 million when he left Ireland in August 1996 and they rated him one of the most significant drug barons.
He told trial judges he was working day and night in the import-export business he had started in the Netherlands, where he has applied for permanent resident status.
Sentencing Massey (38), the Meath truck driver, Judge Roel said the court was satisfied he was a willing accomplice. The former county hurling champion had "abused the trust of his employers, allowing himself to be sucked into the plot to steal property of considerable value". The court rejected his claim that he was under severe psychological pressure to go along with his underworld contacts.