ICE Deported ‘Brian’ – Months Later He Was Back Fleecing Seattle Homeowners, And He’s One Of Dozens

The bearded man in the cowboy hat who talked his way onto Seattle porches as “Brian” was, according to a KING 5 investigation, an Irishman ICE had already arrested in Boston and deported to Ireland on July 16, 2025. Five months later, the station reports, he was knocking on homeowner David Diedrick’s door.

KING 5’s investigators say sources in Ireland and the UK identified “Brian” as Bernard “Bernie” McDonagh, 42, and that the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the identification. ICE had described him as being in the country illegally when it picked him up in July 2025. “He pretty much just turned around and came back,” Diedrick told the station.

The pitch, as Diedrick tells it, was a small one. “Brian” stopped him on the sidewalk and said the chimney “could use some work,” quoting a job on the top three rows and a cap. Diedrick figured anything under $5,000 was manageable. Once work began, the problems multiplied, the whole chimney came down, and the number became $22,000. “It’s January. It’s raining,” Diedrick said.

He got off lightly. Another homeowner told KING 5 of losing nearly $200,000 to the same man, and said that halfway through the job his company’s name changed from TrueCraft Masonry to Flex Roofing and Repairs. McDonagh has not been charged with anything in the US, and he did not respond to KING 5’s calls or to a letter delivered to his home in the UK, which the station says was signed for by the woman sources identify as his wife.

One Of Dozens

Investigators describe McDonagh as one face of something much larger. Law enforcement has called it a “crime ring” of dozens of men with Irish accents working homeowners across the country, most recently in the Pacific Northwest, with losses estimated in the tens of millions of dollars, according to KING 5. The men rotate names and business names, sometimes impersonating legitimate companies, hand out flyers promising licensed and bonded work, then manufacture problem after problem once the job starts.

The station says it has now spoken with 50 victims in the Seattle area alone. In August it confronted a crew whose porch job in Bellevue had climbed to $47,000 (the company on its paperwork has not been charged), and after the report aired the crew fled town.

McDonagh’s past fits a rougher picture than the charming contractor. In 2021, The Irish Times reported that a Bernie McDonagh, then 37, of Ballyvolane, was charged in Cork District Court with possessing offensive weapons after men armed with machetes descended on a rival family during a feud in which a shot was reported fired. Gardai alleged in court that CCTV showed him discarding weapons as he got out of a car, and a judge refused him bail. KING 5 says that is the same man.

Where Are The Arrests?

The federal government knows the playbook. The FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center recognizes the “Traveling Conmen Fraud Group” as a transnational organized crime group whose members are typically Irish or UK nationals who overstayed tourist visas or, more commonly, entered illegally, according to the US Attorney’s Office in Rhode Island. In April that office got a 56-month federal sentence for John O’Brien, an Irish national living in the US unlawfully, who admitted defrauding homeowners in Rhode Island and Massachusetts of more than $1.5 million.

The O’Brien case ran on the same script. He told an 83-year-old Warwick man he had spotted cracks in his foundation, took $9,500, then “discovered” more damage and asked for another $80,000. A home inspector hired by prosecutors found no evidence the foundation needed the repairs. O’Brien is expected to be deported after his sentence.

In Washington, DHS took over all the Seattle-area cases after KING 5’s first reports, through its investigations unit, which is separate from ICE. Officials told the station these cases take time and that they want the evidence in hand before going to prosecutors. So far, KING 5 says, it knows of no arrests.

That is the part Diedrick can’t get past. He contrasted the resources spent deporting people “here working hard, trying to make a living” with McDonagh: “someone like this [McDonagh] who is already here illegally and is scamming people and has been arrested, and now is back. That’s really frustrating to hear.”