Fraudsters steal £180k from two elderly women

http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/reading-berkshire-news/berkshire-fraudsters-steal-devastating-180k-11122313?

1 APR 2016

Berkshire fraudsters steal a 'devastating' £180k from two elderly women

A curious instance but not an isolated one.

The pair opened a number of bank accounts in the names of fake businesses in July 2013. They then added themselves as third parties on the accounts of the Natwest customers by forging their signatures.

Mr Atwal transferred £90,904 from a 91-year-old woman's account and Mr Aslam made three transfers totalling £91,120 from a 73-year-old woman's account into the accounts they had opened.

Once the funds were in Aslam’s account, he transferred £45,000 to the account of Atwal and withdrew £7,000 in cash.

Now the first curious point is this

http://courtnewsuk.co.uk/?news_id=44025

They both walked free with suspended sentences after the judge was told they were not the architects of the fraud.

The point is that having "opened a number of bank accounts in the names of fake businesses" and then receiving stolen money into them is the definition of money laundering and the authorities state:

http://www.lep.co.uk/news/fraud-experts-issue-money-mule-warning-1-7828723?

Money mules receive the stolen funds into their account and they are then asked to withdraw it and wire the money to a different account, keeping some of the money for themselves.

Someone who gets themselves involved in this kind of activity could spend up to 14 years in jail if caught.

Obviously not in this case.

In spite of the quoted detail that they "had added themselves as third parties on the [victims'] accounts of the Natwest customers by forging their signatures"

More curiously

A female employee, whose details were used to access the accounts of both women without any official reason, was arrested as part of the probe into the scam.

She was sacked but no charges were ever brought after NatWest, owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland, made it clear it would not support the prosecution

A statement read out in court said: 'I am authorised by NatWest to formally withdraw allegations of theft against [the employee] (I thought that is what the CPS decided).

'I have made this decision because of the affect it could have on other staff and reputational damage to the organisation.'

'Neither of you were the organisers. Someone within the bank was providing confidential client information.

'If either of those two had been before the court they would be going to prison for a very, very long time indeed.'

I could speculate with some degree of certainty why this has happened but I don't approve of it happening if for no other reason than the general public should be made aware of how easily customers can lose money to banks though the actions of staff who may never face prosecution, for whatever reason.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner can lecture the public on account security as much as he likes, as he has done in the previous article I posted, but nothing will provide protection against this type of fraud except ironically more robust security procedures within banks.

For legal clarity I would add something that all articles concerning this type of fraud don't mention, but a forged/counterfeit signature places no obligation on the victim and, any loss suffered, is legally the responsibility of the bank who pays money away.

I would add that anyone involved in such a fraud will inevitably be caught even if, in this instance, not face prosecution.