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A senior banker has been sentenced to five years behind bars for exploiting his authority and stealing the identities and savings of elderly customers.
The High Criminal Court yesterday found the 38-year-old Bahraini guilty of swindling more than BD136,000 from loyal clients, whose accounts and financial portfolios he was entrusted with managing.
He was also fined BD100,000 and the court ordered him to return BD136,575 to his victims who he preyed on because they lacked his technological prowess.
The court heard that the unscrupulous banker was able to fool his victims by using ‘out-of-the-box’ methods, including impersonating them using a voice-altering app.
“The defendant used his high-ranking position to exploit elderly customers’ lack of capability in using banking services or handling technology,” the verdict read.
“He also took advantage of the fact that they cannot differentiate between legitimate transactions and fraudulent ones.
“He used their identities to open bank accounts in their names, without their knowledge, and changed contact information and addresses linked to existing bank accounts, so they would not receive notifications or messages.
“Through these means, and by abusing his privileges and those of his colleagues, he was able to illicitly take over the funds.”
The GDN earlier reported that the man targeted elderly customers, including a bedbound, comatose man suffering from dementia, a 90-year-old date farmer, as well as a clueless grandmother.
He was found guilty of taking their photographs and CPR cards in order to use them to remotely open accounts in two banks and two payment platforms, without their knowledge or consent.
Between the three victims, he reportedly embezzled BD136,575 which they had deposited in the bank, transferring them to new accounts that he covertly opened.
The Public Prosecution also told the court that the banker falsified digital records, altered customers’ information and gained unlawful access to their accounts with the intention of defrauding them.
The man also reportedly kept files on potential targets in his home – bank clients aged between 60 and 80 – which included hard copies of their personal information.
Through impersonating the bedridden client alone, the executive swindled BD61,000 of money belonging to the chronically-ill man.
The client’s son, who was authorised to act on his behalf, testified about their ordeal, stating that his father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease more than a decade ago, adding: “He was not at all aware of his finances.”
As for the 90-year-old farmer, a random roadside encounter led him to cross paths with the banker. He was selling dates on the side of the road near his Barbar farm when he was approached.
“He said he would take a picture of me so I could receive government benefits,” the nonagenarian stated. “He asked for my CPR card, and once I began getting suspicious of him, he told me, ‘don’t be scared’. I didn’t end up receiving any benefits.”
A 75-year-old man, who has been a client of the international bank for the last 50 years, testified that the thief was assigned as his account manager, and earlier took his photograph with his phone.
During an audit, a former colleague of the banker who has since moved to a new bank, was able to identify the criminal’s voice in recordings of the attempts made to open accounts for the victims.
The case was forwarded to the National Audit Office which carried out an extensive investigation.
Authorities stated that a search of the defendant’s phone revealed that two voice-altering apps were installed on it, one of which was named ‘Celebrity Voice Changer’.
In a previous hearing, the banker’s attorney pleaded with judges for mercy because his client’s wife had been diagnosed with stage four cancer and multiple sclerosis, and could no longer take care of their young children on her own.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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