Taipei Fubon Bank employee caught embezzling NT$4.69 million from 22 customers

台北富邦行員從22位客戶中盜領新台幣469萬

Bank employee created false procedural steps to access private customer information and forge documents


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — An incident involving a Fubon Bank employee embezzling NT$4.69 million (US$155,000) from 22 customers last year provides a cautionary tale for customers to be on guard for bank fraud.

The 26-year-old bank teller Yu Chen-chieh (游振杰) was short on cash and helped himself instead to customer accounts at the Fubon Beitou branch where he worked. Yu was found guilty of forging withdrawal documents from 22 Fubon customers as well as directly putting customer deposits into his account, according to FTV.

Out of fear of being caught however, Yu shifted money from other customer accounts, NT$3.47 million in total, back into accounts he initially stole from in hopes that no one would notice any large sums of money missing. The plot was discovered after customers reported missing home loan payments to the bank manager.

When Yu was arrested he confessed to embezzlement, stating that desperation drove him to take such a risk, however he would not disclose to police the location of all of the money, reported LTN. Yu was prosecuted for business misappropriation and forgery.

Yu was immediately removed from his post in 2017 and the stolen money was fully returned to each customer. Fubon Bank stresses that customers overall incurred no financial loss from this incident.

Financial expert Huang Shih-tsung (黃世聰) said that one of Yu's tactics was to gain access to customer pin codes by saying, "I can help you enter your four-digit pin number" or "your four-digit pin number is expired." Huang warns that it is not difficult for bank employees to create false procedural steps as customers typically do not pay close attention to transaction details.