Ireland’s dark side of ambition and deceit is laid bare in Swindlers, a new three-part RTÉ documentary series that delves into the lives of the nation’s most notorious con artists and white-collar criminals. Premiering on , the series isn’t simply a recounting of financial crimes, but a chilling exploration of the betrayal and lasting trauma inflicted upon victims, friends, and families.
The series, produced by Animo TV, distinguishes itself by prioritizing the human cost of these elaborate schemes. Director Maurice Sweeney recounts the challenges of even securing interviews, noting a recurring hesitancy among potential contributors. It wasn’t the monetary loss that silenced them, he discovered, but the profound emotional exposure of admitting trust had been so fundamentally violated. “It was the betrayal — trusting someone, often someone close, and discovering that trust was misplaced. That emotional exposure was harder to endure than any monetary figure, particularly for Irish people, I felt,” Sweeney explains.
The opening episode focuses on Julia Holmes, an international con artist who operated under over forty aliases across three continents for four decades. Holmes’s story, involving bigamy, fraud, and investigations by the FBI, PSNI, and An Garda Síochána, is particularly compelling. The series features interviews with those directly impacted by her actions, including Kim Parrish Saunders, whose father married Holmes in the United States. Parrish’s account offers a chilling glimpse into Holmes’s manipulative nature. “There was no feeling or emotion in her eyes… She had gone nineteen and a half years scamming everyone that she met. I think she believed that she was untouchable,” Parrish recalled.
Sweeney’s experience attempting to interview Parrish in Texas underscores the emotional weight of these stories. After initial arrangements were made, Parrish went silent, leaving the production team in uncertainty. This silence, Sweeney notes, became a pattern throughout the series, with individuals grappling with the decision to publicly revisit painful experiences. The eventual interview, secured after a tense wait, proved invaluable, offering a rare and honest perspective on the long-term consequences of Holmes’s deceit.
But Swindlers doesn’t solely focus on the victims. The series also attempts to understand the motivations of the perpetrators. Sweeney reflects on figures like Thomas Byrne and Harry Cassidy, individuals who seemed driven by a relentless ambition that ultimately crossed the line into criminality. “For me, the most compelling question wasn’t what they did, but when. When did ambition turn into greed? And when did greed cross the line into criminality?” he asks.
The series also positions the economic climate of the Celtic Tiger era as a contributing factor, suggesting that a period of rapid growth and unchecked ambition provided fertile ground for such schemes to flourish. However, the core of Swindlers remains the human stories – the quiet courage of those who chose to speak out and reclaim their dignity after being defrauded. As Sweeney observes, it’s often the restoration of dignity, rather than financial recovery, that proves the most difficult and rewarding outcome for those who share their experiences.
FBI agent David Mohr, who worked the Julia Holmes case, also contributes to the series, offering insight into the investigative challenges and the complexities of pursuing an international con artist. The series, according to Sweeney, aims to explore the fragility of safety and the ease with which trust can be exploited. “It’s about how fragile our sense of safety can be when placed in the wrong hands, and how easily trust can be weaponised.”
Swindlers is available to watch now via RTÉ Player, offering a stark and unsettling look at a hidden side of Irish society and the enduring impact of betrayal and greed.
