By Christine Chen
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Police arrested and charged a former National Australia Bank employee who they alleged was the “gatekeeper of funds” for a sophisticated Sydney crime syndicate that has been accused of defrauding “all financial institutions.”
Early Thursday, financial crime detectives arrested a 36-year-old man at a property in western Sydney and seized A$60,000 worth of luxury jewellery and watches, police said on Friday.
He was refused bail and has been charged with 19 offences including using dishonesty to obtain financial advantage, participating in a criminal group and recklessly dealing with crime proceeds.
Police said the syndicate allegedly orchestrated fake car financing schemes and loan fraud amounting to more than A$200 million ($130 million) across all financial institutions.
The man worked at Australia’s third-largest bank by market value for more than a decade, police said. In his role as a senior business bank manager, he allegedly facilitated A$10 million in fraudulent business loans for a Sydney fraud and money laundering syndicate over a period of at least three years, they said.
“This person, as far as I’m concerned, is the gatekeeper of funds,” Detective Superintendent Gordon Arbinja said at a news conference on Friday. He said the syndicate was one of the largest he had seen in his career.
“Without this person, the fraud cannot be facilitated. So he’s in a position of trust. He violated that trust.”
In a statement, NAB said it had “zero tolerance for employees who engage in criminal conduct,” adding that it acted swiftly to investigate before terminating the man’s employment.
NAB said it was working with police and there was no impact on customers.
The man’s arrest was the 16th made by New South Wales Police as part of their investigation into the network, which has been dubbed the “Penthouse Syndicate” by local media.
In July, police arrested two men believed to be the syndicate’s ringleaders – charging them with a combined 194 offences – and seized A$38 million in assets including two Bentleys and a Ferrari.
“There will be several more arrests that are similar to the one that happened yesterday,” Arbinja said, with police now focused on “professional facilitators” of the syndicate including bankers, mortgage brokers and lawyers.
($1 = 1.5389 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
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