Bank manager jailed for 10 years for £21m embezzlement
Jeevan Vasagar
The Guardian
28 Jun 2006
A bank manager who embezzled 21m from his employer in Scotland’s biggest single fraud case was jailed for 10 years yesterday.
Once praised by the Royal Bank of Scotland as a model employee, Donald MacKenzie, 45, had carried out his fraud not to enrich himself but to improve his bank’s loan record, his defence lawyer told the high court in Edinburgh.
MacKenzie, who was named the bank’s business manager of the year in 2003 and earned more than 53,000 including performance-related bonuses, accessed the money by setting up false accounts in the names of fictitious customers. He was also jailed for two years, to be served consecutively, for the theft of 31,170 while working for the bank. David Burns QC, defending, told the court that MacKenzie, who lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two children, had committed the fraud “for reasons of a misguided sense of service rather than personal gain.
“He did not benefit from this scheme, in the sense that he did not obtain any of the 21m. That 21m went to genuine customers of the bank," Mr Burns said.
“As a business manager he felt under substantial pressure to process large numbers of loans to business clients. He responded to that pressure by advancing money bypassing the bank’s monitoring systems. In order to disguise the fact the loans had been advanced he opened bridging accounts in false names, drew down funds into them and paid those funds to customers.”
The bank has attempted to recover the money but the court heard that an estimated 10m remains outstanding. At least three businesses have collapsed after loans were withdrawn. MacKenzie used some of the money paid into false accounts to pay personal bills and those of a ... read more...
posted by Bank Report @ 5:46 AM
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