CHIBA (TR) – A female clerk at a branch of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp in Matsudo City has been implicated in a multi-year embezzlement scheme in which money was stolen from the accounts of customers, reports TV Asahi (Dec. 22).
Over a seven-year period, the clerk, who was fired in June, allegedly forged the seals of customers in the theft of around 400 million yen. The money was used to cover losses in trades involving foreign currencies.
A representative of SMBC said that the police have been alerted and that the bank is conducting an internal investigation.
This is not the first embezzlement case this year involving an employee of SMBC. In October, police arrested Hiroshi Minamibashi, a former deputy manager of a branch in Tokyo, for allegedly receiving 190 million yen through the fraudulent manipulation of accounts in foreign currency transactions.
Total losses to SMBC in the latter care believed to be 1.1 billion yen. Minamibashi is currently under prosecution at the Tokyo District Court.
In the case in Matsudo, police have launched an investigation on suspicion of corporate embezzlement.
