Gambler Bilks Bank

Kim David Faithfull, 36, of Karratha in Western Australia, was sentenced on Friday for stealing $13Million (AUD19 million) from customer account to satisfy his online gambling habit, according to this article by John Leyden in The Register.

According to the article, “Despite the size and regularity of the thefts, regular audits by the Commonwealth Bank failed to unearth anything suspicious. By early this year, Faithfull had lost AUD8 million. Over the next six months he tried to dig himself out through a series of increasingly desperate bets that saw him squander another AUD11 million.”

The scheme was only revealed after Faithful turned himself in on August 2nd.

One has to wonder about this bank’s internal controls, or what happened to the depositors who had their accounts bilked. It just goes to show you that you don’t need to engage in online banking to be victimized by the new banking systems. And it remains the case, even today, that insiders are still the biggest threat.