Hundreds of millions swindled from banks in past 5 years, mostly by staff, say police

Fraud by bank employees is getting more serious as losses incurred by banks due to money swindled by staff has increased to RM473.82 million over the last five years.

Bukit Aman Commercial Crimes Department's Head of Unit for Banking and Financial Crimes Supt Harjinder Kaur Gurdial Singh said overall the banks suffered losses amounting to RM789,106,376 for various types of fraud during the period.

In 2008, it was RM10.1 million, RM27.1 million (2009), RM85.4 million (2010), RM84.5 million (2011), RM191.8 million (2012) and RM390 million (up to November 2013), she told reporters during a special interview on commercial crime in Kuala Lumpur today.

She said among fraud cases involving bank employees were withdrawing money from accounts that have been inactive for more than three years and not crediting cash deposits into customers' accounts.

Bank branch managers were also found abusing overdraft facilities by abusing accounts of customers.

"Our investigation found 60% of the bank fraud was committed by their own employees, 30% by the management while 10% were by the account holders themselves," she said.

Apart from cases of fraud involving bank employees, other fraud involved criminal breach of trust (CBT), document forging, misappropriation of properties and attempts to cheat through banks said Harjinder Kaur.

"What is more shocking is that 60% of bank fraud was committed by women compared with only 40% by men, while 70% of the victims in these fraud cases were men," she said.

She also said bank officers and employees were advised to comply with standard operating procedures (SOP) when processing loan applications from customers.

"Members of the public are advised to be cautious with their security details and personal documents which could be abused by third parties," she said.

- Bernama