JEDDAH, 27 December 2002 — The Court of Grievances in Riyadh has sentenced a local bank manager to three years in jail on charges of embezzling SR2 million from the bank, Al-Watan reported yesterday.
The court also ordered the accused to return the sum he stole in addition to paying a fine of SR3,000.
The Investigations Department submitted that the manager forged signatures of several customers to withdraw money from their deposits.
In his capacity as the head of the branch he had access to all secret records pertaining to customers and could easily forge records.
In order not to raise the suspicion of customers he used to withdraw amounts of varying amounts at varying intervals, the investigation department charged.
It requested the court to punish him under the anti-forgery regulations.
In another case, the same court found three officials of another local bank guilty of forgery and misuse of financial documents.
They were sentenced to three years imprisonment and SR3,000 fine for each.
The investigators found that two of them persuaded a third employee who had access to secret documents about a client to provide them certain vital information for forging some documents in the customer’s name.
Meanwhile, Abha police detained three employees — two Saudis and an Egyptian — of the Al-Rajhi Company on their suspected involvement in a burglary involving SR2.4 million belonging to the company.
The suspects were sent on a mission to replenish the cash supply in ATM machines at various points in Abha.
The car carrying the money was stolen after the trio had parked it in front of a petrol station and had gone to join the noon prayer, the suspects said.
Later the car was found but SR2 million was missing out of the total sum.
According to a police source the retrieved car did not show any sign of forced opening or other methods employed by professional car thieves.
The police are still investigating.
