Bank Otsar Hahayal yesterday submitted an urgent request to the Tel Aviv district court to prevent the departure of its Ashdod branch deputy manager from the country. The bank alleges that the deputy branch manager, who has also served as the branch business unit manager for many years, embezzled upwards of NIS 3.8 million.
The fraudulent activity was uncovered completely by chance when a client at a different branch of the bank asked to join her husband's account. The branch manager saw that the woman appeared to already have an account at the Ashdod branch with a debt of NIS 372,000. The woman did not know anything of the matter and said that her account there had been closed in 1998. She was sent to the deputy manager who told her he would look into the matter. In fact he erased the client from the account, and register it in the name of a different client.
Although this seemed to have solved the problem, the woman's branch manager became suspicious when she saw that not only did the woman not have an account in arrears, she did not have one at all. She contacted the Ashdod branch manager who inquired who the new client was who had been registered in the account in place of the woman. He discovered that the branch had no paperwork related to the account, despite the fact that extensive business activity was conducted through it, including check clearing, loans and even a mortgage.
The deputy branch manager presented the manager with a document purporting to certify a mortgage in the account, however further investigation revealed that the land in question belonged to a governmental authority and could not have been mortgaged under any circumstances.
In response to questions regarding additional accounts under the responsibility of the deputy manager, to which he could not provide answers, the deputy manager asked to go home and said that he was on the verge of a heart attack.
After further investigation, 14 accounts were found to have similar patterns and a check for NIS 41,000 which seems to have been forged was found in the drawer of the deputy manager. The deputy manager has since not returned phone calls nor has he delivered a report requested of him by the Otsar Hahayal audit department. He did not come to work today and it is feared by the bank that he may flee the country to join relatives living in Jamaica.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on February 14, 2007
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