Fifteen years' imprisonment for banker who attacked customer to empty her accounts
An employee of a financial institution in Lugo province has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment after beating a customer, stealing her mobile phone and transferring funds through fraud.
Fifteen years' imprisonment for banker who attacked customer to empty her accounts
A court in Lugo province has imposed a sentence of fifteen years' imprisonment on a man who worked as staff at a bank office after he admitted to seriously assaulting a customer in order to take possession of her mobile phone and steal money from her accounts through fraudulent transactions. The judgment was reached through agreement between the parties, according to ABC.
The defendant, using the alias Maximiliano, had access permissions to the company's database where he worked. Over a period of approximately thirty days in early 2022, he examined private and financial information about the victim, a woman with recognised permanent total disability and severe health problems. In this way he found out her address in Xermade (Lugo) and confirmed that she had funds in her financial products.
The day before the assault, on 4 February, the man drove to the victim's town. He remained hidden near the house for sixty minutes to complete the preparations: identify the property, plan escape routes, observe the woman's routine and confirm that she did not share the home with anyone else.
The next day, armed with all the data he had gathered, he returned to the location confident that the victim was alone. He took her mobile phone and, to prevent her from reporting what had happened, struck her violently on the head with a blunt object. The beating caused severe brain damage that required two surgical interventions.
With the electronic device now in his possession and the victim in a state of total vulnerability, the convicted man called the financial institution's customer service line multiple times. Impersonating the woman and using the information he had gathered during his previous investigations in the branch system, he managed to reset passwords and unlock the mobile banking application.
That same day, 5 February, he transferred 4,990 euros to a joint account with his spouse. Twenty-four hours later he made another transaction of 4,995 euros between the same accounts. On 7 February he channelled 15,000 euros to an account held by a third party whose documentation he had obtained months earlier by posing as an insurance intermediary: he visited his home claiming to arrange a policy, photographed his identity card and subsequently opened a deposit in his name linked to a telephone number belonging to the defendant himself.
Despite the defendant's admission of guilt and acceptance of the sentence by the accused, the financial company refused to assume the associated civil obligation, which meant a hearing had to be held to decide this matter. The judges found a link between the previous consultation of the customer's records and the absence of supervision mechanisms by the bank, but determined that the surveillance and the beating constituted acts disconnected from his work duties. Consequently, they limited the subsidiary liability of the institution to 729 euros, the only amount not refunded to the victim, as the remaining sums were recovered by the participating financial intermediaries.
Source: ABC