The alleged embezzlement of tens or hundreds of millions of Icelandic kronur by a staff member at Old Kaupthing Bank is under police investigation. The woman accused of misappropriating the funds was sacked when the issue first came to light.
The missing funds were only exposed when Old Kaupthing collapsed just over a year ago and New Kaupthing (now called Arion) took over. The woman accused of embezzling the funds had worked for the bank for many years in asset management, where she dealt in securities for a select and tight-knit group of bank customers, mainly in bonds and exchanges. There would have been no companies represented in the group, RUV reports.
Johannes Runar Johannsson, from the Old Kaupthing resolution committee, says the trades were based on so called service contracts and that the woman would have dealt with very large sums of money on a daily basis.
The case has been known to few people until now – just being investigated by those high up in both the old and new banks. The case was then referred to the Financial Crimes department of the Icelandic police force in the summer and the investigation is still said to be “far from completion”. The accused woman was sacked from her post as soon as the irregularities were noticed.
The overall amount she is accused of skimming off could amount to half a billion kronur (just over USD 4 million).
She was sacked from her position for embezzlement. Excuse me – why was she not put on trial and, proven guilty, sentenced to prison for exploiting her position in the bank to steal from the bank’s customers?
Promising potential for promotion, but I suppose it’s the ability to not be caught that defines the real stars.
If only she had worked for a bank that is guided by the values of professionalism, ambition, concern for others and loyalty, with the customer in the foreground at all times – things might have been so different.
If the woman was sacked was sacked over a year because of evidence of embezzlement then why, oh why, is the investigation still far from completion? In particular, why didn’t the banks refer it to the police until the summer – aren’t Icelandic banks under any obligation to report embezzlement?! I guess the woman was a relative of someone high-up in the bank.
I wonder how many other people will turn out to have had their fingers in the till. I expect this woman thought it was only fair that she should have her share.
Seriously, does anyone know why the banks didn’t refer criminal embezzlement to the police until the summer? Surely Icelandic banks are under obligation to report criminal embezzlement to the authorities. Or perhaps the bank reported it to the regulator, who then didn’t bother to inform the police. What’s going on here: process incompetence or cover-up?…
the robbers now ,are inside the bank not outside ,so beware those banks you must background check your employees,if they are involved in icelandic connection.
Well that’s just great news. At least our lost life-savings from Kaupthing Isle of Man have been put to good use by this lady rather than being wasted.
I’m really sick of all you british commenters haunting this site with your snarky remarks whenever there is a banking story.
Yes the banks screwed up, but um maybe you should have done some research before your greed attracted you to high interest rates.
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/11/23/kaupthing-employee-accused-of-stealing-millions/
>The woman accused of embezzling the funds had worked for the bank for
>many years in asset management, where she dealt in securities for a select
>and tight-knit group of bank customers, mainly in bonds and exchanges.
>There would have been no companies represented in the group, RUV reports.
>The overall amount she is accused of skimming off could amount to half a billion kronur (just over USD 4 million).
Again, like the Glitnir loan issue+ Like this is a big failure of the internal bank controls and of course a disgusting breach of trust.
And once more we see yet more killing off of the sexist idea that some how women are less risk averse and less risk taker than men.
If example of other bank Kautphing’s business unit New Bond Street Asset Management ( managed by women) did not already have put that stupid sextist idea to rest.
That ladies was the only ones that gave exposure to sub-prime loan of Icelandic banks when there was the implodition of New Bond Street Asset Management with losses to Kaupthing in 2007.
I do hope that the judge does throw the book at her.
It does also remind me of case I heard of similiar kind of embezelment at Royal Bank of Scotland a couple years ago++.
This does happen in banks when as happens bank has misfortune to have employed a dishonest thief and they internal controls does fail.
+http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/11/03/glitnir-loaned-children-money-to-buy-shares/#comment-100077
++http://business.scotsman.com/royalbankofscotland/30m-embezzlement-fear-sparks-RBoS.2525094.jp
£30m embezzlement fear sparks RBoS security review
Sam wrote :
>At least our lost life-savings from Kaupthing Isle of Man have been put to good use by this lady rather than being wasted.
I am sorry that you did lose your money and that at present you will only get back monies up to pounds £ 50.000. But facts are that you money is there under the control of the UK FSA in UK Treausry bank accounts :
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/05/19/iceland’s-kaupthing-bank-talking-tough-over-debtors/#comment-76806
The time line of this that was taken advantage of by UK Treasury in case of KSF IOM is this :
* April 2008 — Isle of Man’sregulator the Financial Supervision Commission had ‘requested and approved’ transfer of £ 185 odd million from Kaupthing in Reykjavik to Kaupthing Singer Friedlander in UK.
* June 2008 — the Isle of Man FSC did tell KSF Isle of Man to remove all remaining exposure to parent bank of £ 175 million to KSF in the UK.
* October 2008 — October 8, without warning or having given any notice of their intentions to the Isle of Man FSC or the Isle of Man bank, the UK Treasury and the UK FSA did order the transfer of the majority of KSF in UK retail deposits to ING Direct and did force KSF UK into administration.
And now we know from out come of judicial review that UK FSA and Treasury did not actually have any good reason for it actions at all in making this administration order as it did.
The Mail comes to the rescue with a long, rambling account of that one Fisy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-392894/How-did-bank-manager-stole-21m-away-long.html
John T. Steal! If only that wasn’t a fictious example :) .
Which of course is the exact opposite of the result of the case. Nice try Fisy. You were unusually quiet at the time the news broke on that one.
Why does Iceland not put these people on trial or If they have given a grand jury investigaton, put her in jail in Iceland for at least amount of time to fit the crime. How can the gov. allow her to ne free knowng this? What is wrong with enforcement of Law
Come on Iceland!1!! Do you want crime to get out of control, watch out who you let immigrate in? Why don’y Icelandics speak English and other languages from when they are first put in school. They uesed to, alot has changed in 7 years, came last year!!!! Bless my peeps-all my love and hope for the Country to get it right financially!!!!!
So Sorry for the misspellings , typing to fast and not spell checking! Go VIKES-KEFLAVIK! and both North and South Capital’s. Miss my peeps!!! Elin
Four million dollars – wahts the big fuss Thats small change compared to what people in positions stole from banks. I guess she just took what she needed in these harsh times before the money isn’t worth anything. Of course, until she has been proven guilty she is to be viewed as innocent, that shouldnt be forgotten. although feelings are tense and people are looking for scape goats. My opinion is, teh governments are anyway running into astronomic debts everywhere these days. why not pay every citizen a sum of lets say four million dollars and see waht happens ?
WELL, BANKS DON´T WANT THESE ISSUES TO BE MADE PUBLIC… BECAUSE THEY DAMAGE THE TRUST PEOPLE HAVE ON BANKS…
AS I SAID IN MANY OF MY “HILARIOUS” AND “CRAZY” COMMENTS PRODUCT OF MY MIND JUST VOMITING THINGS: ICELANDIC BANKS ARE LIKE THE CAVE OF ALI-BABA AND THE 40 ROBBERS….
IS IT TRUE? IS IT OVERRRR??
SO TELL ME ABOUT THE RUMORS, ARE THEY ONLY RUMORS?
ARE THEY ONLY LIES?
FALLING OUT OF A PERFECT DREAM…COMING OUT OF THE BLUEEEEE
IS IT TRUE?
IS IT OVER?
IS IT TRUE? DID I DREAM IT? WILL ICELAND WAKE FROM THIS PAIN??
FALLING OUT OF A PERFECT DREAMMM…. COMING OUT OF THE BLUEEEEE…
>The Mail comes to the rescue with a long, rambling account of that one Fisy.
As I said Brumley, both situation show a failure of internal bank controls. This kind thing happens unfortunately at all larger banks and is more common than might first expect — as subjct of article says:
“How did bank manager who stole £21m [from RBS ] get away with it so long?”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-392894/How-did-bank-manager-stole-21m-away-long.html#ixzz0Y0yPGpNp
“The actual loss ? in real cash paid out ? is still a staggering £10million [to RBS], and the bank estimates that, as the manipulation of funds was so complex and intricate, as much as £4 million may never be recouped.
..
Many recipients were businesses which, although genuine, might not have qualified for the kind of handouts Mackenzie was rubber-stamping.
Why did Mackenzie bend the rules for them when he didn’t have to? Every lie, every bogus transaction, increased the likelihood of his being caught, but, at the same time, his fraudulent activities earned him performance-related bonuses and brought him the ‘Business Manager of the Year’ accolade for 2002, 2003 and 2004.
He began to enjoy his new status; he had joined the bank as a 19-year-old, now, finally, he was ‘somebody’ ? as long as he didn’t get caught.
And so Mackenzie devised an ingenious system of manipulating the bank loan process by creating false accounts in names similar to those of genuine customers. For example, the fictitious John T. Steal instead of the real John T. Steale.
When customers like ‘Mr Steal’ ‘applied’ for a loan, Mackenzie would omit the business lending code from the paperwork, ensuring applications did not go to a separate department, whose job it was to approve such loans. Mackenzie regularly used 70 such accounts and, at one point, 1,200 were in existence.
..
The fraud started in 1999, the year after Mackenzie was married to Margaret Colthard, who worked as a personal credit adviser at the same branch. Not once did Mackenzie let his guard slip in front of her ? she never suspected. Donald Mackenzie’s extraordinary double life continued for five years.”
Brumley wrote :
>Which of course is the exact opposite of the result of the case. Nice try Fisy. You were unusually quiet at the time the news broke on that one.
For ” quiet ” read busy with in real life stuff.
But of course you know that the detailed transcripts of case support what I have been saying here on boards about Kautphing case for over a year.
>For ” quiet ” read busy with in real life stuff.
Understood, but you’re not busy now. Feel free to make your case. Here you go:
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/10/21/kaupthing-loses-claim-against-british-government/
You know I will Brumley when I am ready. First there are other post to reply to that I just found.
If new IceNews system is to be upgraded I look forward to it so I can locate post by searching based on the user that did post and not rely on this in complete Google searching.
A secretary of Goldman Sachs stole 5 Million Pounds out of her boss’ personal account.
Sometimes this makes you wonder how much these people have in their accounts if they can’t miss 5 Million.
But such behaviour is becoming more widespread.
Ian.