RBS loses £93,000 in simple scam

RBS scammed

A businessman managed to con GBP£93,000 from the Royal bank of Scotland (RBS) through an exceptionally simple scam and has been sentenced to a year in jail for fraud.

Senthuran Gopalakrishnan, who ran two Costcutter franchises, achieved his simple scam by merely lying about the amount of money he was putting into the bank using RBS's Fast Cash deposit system.

The 30-year old wrote that there was GBP£155,000 on the front of RBS's Fast Cash business deposit wallets, but in actual fact he had only deposited GBP£62,000. However, it took staff one of RBS's Edinburgh branches almost a week to notice that they had been duped by the simple scam.

Initially the bank credited Mr. Gopalakrishnan's account with the full amount he claimed to have deposited, and, over the next few days, he used the money obtained in the simple scam to replace stock in the two failing Costcutter franchises he managed, in a desperate bid to make his bosses believe that the shops were running at a profit.

During this time, RBS employees in a separate section of the bank to the one Mr. Gopalakrishnan had paid in his Fast Cash wallet, uncovered the fraud whilst counting through the actual sums contained within each of the envelopes paid in by RBS customers. RBS staff reported the crime to the police and detailed Mr. Gopalakrishnan's fraudulent simple scam, but by this time the Sri Lankan born man, who holds Danish citizenship, had fled the UK.

Ease of simple scam

Mr. Gopalakrishnan was detained at Glasgow airport after returning to Scotland from Dubai and admitted his wrongdoings to police.

On Monday, Mr. Gopalakrishnan appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court and pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and was given a year's sentence for his crime.

Prosecutor Gerard Drugan said "It is interesting how the offence was committed" and discussed the ease with which Mr. Gopalakrishnan was able to carry off his simple scam, pointing out: "Say you marked GBP£4000 on the envelope, they took that figure and credited your account with it."

Mr. Drugan continued: "With the Fast Cash system, the bank take it at face value that what is written is the amount inside and credit the account with that cash." He added though that "thankfully the bank have now modified their practices."

The stolen GBP£93,000 has not, however, been recovered.

Sentencing for Costcutter manager's crime

According to Mr. Gopalakrishnan's defence lawyer, Paul Dunne, the crime was "an act of financial desperation rather than an act of malice...He knew the shortfall would be noticed and is here to face the music."

Sheriff James Scott said that Mr. Gopalakrishnan had been under a great deal of pressure with his work but asserted that a prison sentence was the only viable option.

"I recognise that there are substantial mitigating factors in your case and that you found yourself in a desperate situation" said Sheriff Scott, "but you took GBP£93,000 and not a penny has been repaid. Therefore I am satisfied that in your case no sentence other than custody is appropriate."

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