A Guyanese employee in an unidentified bank in New York has been arrested for defrauding the bank to the tune of US$1.7 million.
United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Audrey Strauss, and William F. Sweeney Jr., Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said in a joint statement on Thursday that Gangadai Rampersaud Azim, also known as Julie Azim, 58, was charged with wire fraud, bank fraud, bank theft, money laundering and conspiracy, “for her role in a scheme to defraud her employer, a Manhattan-based bank, of approximately US$1.7 million”.
“Azim was arrested today and presented before United States Magistrate Judge Stewart D. Aaron this afternoon,” the statement said.
Strauss said it was alleged that Azim, who resides in the Richmond Hill section of Queens, New York, “betrayed her position as a trusted bank employee to defraud the bank and misappropriate client funds for more than a dozen years”.
“She allegedly stole more than US$1.7 million and concealed the scheme until an absence from work led to its discovery. Now Azim faces the prospect of a much longer absence from work.”
Sweeney added that Azim’s alleged fraud scheme not only victimized her employer but also risked the financial standing of the customers whose accounts she manipulated.
“In the long run, defrauding a financial institution with the hope of making an easy profit only resulted in (US) federal charges and the potential for time behind bars,” he said.
According to the allegations in the complaint, unsealed on Thursday in Manhattan federal court, between August 2008 and January 2021, Azim, a long-time employee of a New York, New York-based bank (identified only as Bank-1) stole approximately US$1.7 million from her employer.
“Over the course of approximately 12 years, Azim executed hundreds of wire transfers of Bank-1 funds to co-conspirators and related companies, who then sent portions of the ill-gotten funds to Azim’s personal bank account,” the complaint alleges.
“In furtherance of her scheme to defraud Bank-1, Azim repeatedly made false entries in Bank-1’s systems, misappropriating funds paid to Bank-1 by its clients to satisfy outstanding loan obligations and then extending the maturity dates of those loan obligations, making it appear as though the loan obligations had not yet been paid,” it adds.
When even the fraudulently extended maturity dates came due, Azim originated new, fraudulent loans.
“Azim utilized the proceeds of those fraudulent loans to satisfy the loans for which she had previously stolen the client payments,” the complaint further alleges. “In doing so, Azim abused her position at Bank-1 and enriched herself at the expense of her employer.”
The US Attorney’s Office said Azim’s alleged fraud was discovered by Bank-1 when Azim took a leave from her position there as a result of illness earlier this year.
In January 2021, the US Attorney’s Office said Bank-1 debited the account of a client of Bank-1 (identified as Client-1) in order to pay off an outstanding loan obligation Client-1 had coming due.
“Client-1 then alerted Bank-1 that the debit was improper, as Client-1 had, in fact, paid off that obligation in 2019,” the US Attorney’s Office said. “Upon further investigation, Bank-1 discovered that while the funds had been withdrawn from Client-1’s account in or about 2019, Azim had misappropriated those funds, using them for purposes other than satisfying Client-1’s obligation.”
As a result of identifying this discrepancy, the US Attorney’s Office said Bank-1 officials discovered about 14 loan obligations (known as the Fraudulent Loan Obligations), worth more than about US$1 million, for which no underlying documents existed.
“Azim appears to have entered each of the Fraudulent Loan Obligations in Bank-1’s systems so that the proceeds could be used, in significant part, to pay off outstanding loan obligations coming to maturity,” the US Attorney’s Office said. “Those loan obligations had, in fact, already been satisfied by clients, but AZIM had misappropriated the payments.”
In addition, Bank-1 officials discovered about five outstanding loan obligations, worth more than approximately US$706,000, for which AZIM appears to have extended the maturity dates, despite the relevant clients having paid off the loan obligations.
“The approximately US$1.7 million of loan proceeds resulting from the Fraudulent Loan Obligations and the improperly extended maturity dates appear to have been misappropriated by Azim,” the statement said.
“Over the course of approximately 12 years, between 2008 and 2020, Azim caused approximately 200 wire transfers of Bank-1’s funds, each for an amount under US$10,000, to be sent to third party accounts, including those of co-conspirators and related companies, which then returned portions of those funds to Azim,” it added.
The US Attorney’s Office said Azim is charged in the complaint with conspiring to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison; bank fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison; and wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
She is also charged with bank theft, embezzlement, or misapplication, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison; conspiring to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; and money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.