A Doha Criminal Court has sentenced in absentia an Arab expatriate man to five years in jail and dismissal from his post as a branch manager of a bank, for embezzlement, local Arabic daily Arrayah reported yesterday.
The court also ordered that the accused pay back a sum of QR132,000, which he was convicted of stealing from the account of a client of the bank he used to work for. Upon serving the sentence, he would be also deported from the country.
The accused, who escaped from the country before his crime was discovered, had earlier called a client of the bank to come and activate latter’s account, which remained inactive for more than six months. The accused asked the client for his credit card and password, and he gave them to the former thinking it was part of the procedures.
Subsequently, the accused send an e-mail to the bank’s operations department saying that the client wants to change his phone number and would no longer receive SMS on his old number, and also wants to be issued a new debit card and password and cancel the old one was lost.
The accused further gave strict orders to the call centre employees not to call the old number of the client.
Later, the accused received the newly issued debit card of the client and activated it to be used in the US.
The fraud was discovered when a new branch manager took charge and an audit was conducted for all the accounts. It was revealed that the client concerned did not receive his new debit card or even travelled to the US during the period when money was withdrawn from his account, the daily added.
