- A former National Australia Bank employee who lost most of his savings to a crypto scam has been sentenced to 18 months prison for fleecing bank customers of almost AUD$500,000.
- Dennis Nguyen used his employee access to customer information and insider knowledge of banking systems to steal the money — one woman lost over AUD$150,000.
- Many Australian banks have strict policies around transfers to crypto exchanges which make investing in crypto difficult and in some cases result in frozen assets and blocked accounts.
A former National Australia Bank (NAB) employee has been sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for the theft of almost AUD$500,000 from bank customers — a crime prompted by him losing most of his life savings to a cryptocurrency scam.
On November 14, 2021, NAB employee Dennis Nguyen realised he’d lost the majority of his savings — approximately AUD$20,000 — to a crypto scam. Distraught at his loss, the following day Nguyen called in sick to his job at NAB. But rather than resting and recuperating, Nguyen instead set about using his insider knowledge of bank systems and access to customer data to defraud customers of their savings.
Nguyen pleaded guilty in the Victoria County Court to three charges of theft and four of fraud.
In delivering the 18 month jail term, Judge Samantha Marks said of Nguyen’s offending: “It was premeditated behaviour, it occurred over some 15 months. The number of different incidents, significant planning, it was in breach of trust.”
Related: Australia Cracks Down on Crypto Scams, Winds Up 95 Companies
Fraudster Abused Bank Job to Steal From Customers
Initially, Nguyen’s fraudulent scheme involved creating a fake Commonwealth Bank profile based on real NAB home loan customer data. After amending customer data on NAB’s internal systems, Nguyen then initiated a AUD$70,000 redraw from the NAB account to the Commonwealth Bank account.
Several days later, the customer contacted the bank about the unauthorised transfer and was reimbursed. By this time, though, Nguyen had already swindled another NAB customer of AUD$50,000 using a similar method.
NAB eventually suspected Nguyen may be up to something. The bank fired him on November 26, 2021 and later referred his case to the Victorian Police.
Before the police caught up with Nguyen, he’d secured a job at Judo Bank and continued his offending. This includes stealing AUD$167,500 from a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis who had recently been released from hospital and was suffering from cognitive impairment.
After receiving a tip-off, Judo also fired Nguyen and contacted the Victorian Police.
After being canned by Judo, Nguyen took the extraordinary step of creating fake profiles on home loan comparison sites posing as a senior executive at Judo Bank, named Patrick. Using this fake profile, Nguyen stole a further AUD$200,000.
In total, Nguyen stole AUD$489,000 from his victims. He certainly made up for that AUD$20,000 loss that started this whole sorry sequence of events.
While Judge Marks acknowledged the seriousness of Nguyen’s offending, she also said his culpability was “informed by…personal circumstances”, which included his father’s alcoholism, gambling addiction and physical abuse of Nguyen.
Judge Marks told Nguyen she accepted his remorse but explained that, “given the gravity of your offending, the sentencing considerations of general deterrence and denunciation are very significant.”
Aussie Banks Have a Difficult Relationship With Crypto
In light of Nguyen’s crimes, the protections most Aussie banks have in place to prevent customers falling victim to crypto scams appear somewhat ironic. Bank policies can make crypto investing inconvenient, and in some cases lead to frozen assets and significant opportunity losses — without real clarity on their effectiveness in preventing scams.
In April, a Melbourne accountant named Andrew Broadbent decided to invest AUD$30,000 in Bitcoin, but his bank, the Commonwealth Bank, had other ideas.
Related: Aussie Judge Rules Bitcoin Is Cash, Puts ATO’s Crypto Taxation on Notice
The bank blocked his transfer and froze all his accounts. Eventually the issue was partially resolved, however it resulted in a financial loss to Broadbent of several thousand dollars.
Policies to ‘protect crypto investors’ remain in place despite the major banks’ growing embrace of Web3 technology. In September the Commonwealth Bank revealed it has been quietly building Web3 projects since as early as 2016 and is now exploring the use of blockchain tech to leverage stablecoins and tokenised assets.
Likewise, ANZ has been exploring using its own stablecoin, A$DC, since 2023 in partnership with the decentralised oracle network, Chainlink.
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