A US regulator is accusing three bank employees of triggering nearly $1 million in losses at JPMorgan Chase and Citi.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) says Tanya Jazmin Cortez sold confidential customer information to a third party for cash while working as a Citi bank teller in California.
Cortez is accused of pocketing $4,560, and the OCC says the illicit sale led to $348,487 in losses due to check fraud between November of 2020 and May of 2022.
Meanwhile, the OCC says an associate banker at a JPMorgan Chase branch in New York City conspired with an unnamed coworker to steal cash.
The agency accuses Leronne Kornegay of falsifying the receipt of counterfeit bills in the bank’s general ledger to cover the theft, triggering a loss of at least $201,785 for the bank.
The alleged theft happened from January of 2020 to June of 2021.
Finally, the OCC says Lexus Inez Lewis – a Citi employee who abandoned her job in the collections department – pretended she was her sister and was re-hired to work in the bank’s fraud department.
At that point, Lewis is accused of allowing transactions to take place on compromised credit cards by suspending the systemic fraud lock on the cards.
“Respondent’s actions resulted in 672 unauthorized, fraudulent transactions incurring on customers’ credit card accounts, totaling $389,127.74 in fraudulent transactions and loss to the Bank.”
Lewis allegedly worked under a false identity from September of 2022 until March of 2023.
Generated Image: Midjourney