Bank employee arrested for stealing from customer
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/bank_85548___article.html/customer_employee.html
March 31, 2008 - 11:35PM
By Jeremy Roebuck/The Monitor
McALLEN - A 21-year-old bank employee is set to appear before a judge Wednesday on charges he stole money from a customer's account.
The U.S. Secret Service alleges Erik Alfredo Constante, of Mission, took $100,000 by forging the account holder's signature on a withdrawal slip.
He is accused of redeeming the slip on March 19 for cash - remnants of which federal authorities say they found during a search of his home a week later.
Constante, a new account executive at the International Bank of Commerce's downtown McAllen branch, was arrested Friday and has remained in the custody of U.S. Marshals pending a detention hearing set for Wednesday.
He maintains the customer requested he withdraw the money and that he hand-delivered it to a man he believed to be the account holder waiting in the bank office, said Secret Service agent Cameron Wolfley in an affidavit filed in the bank employee's case.
The Secret Service investigates financial crimes in addition to providing presidential protection.
Constante told agents that bank bags found in his home were purchased at H.E.B. and meant as a gift to his father, according to court documents filed in his case. But authorities say they found scraps of a money strip used to bind the cash that they later linked to the March 19 withdrawal.
A lawyer has not yet filed with the court to represent the bank employee.
Phone calls to his Mission home were not returned Monday.
R. David Guerra, president and CEO of IBC-McAllen, declined to specifically talk about Constante's case or whether the customer whose account was allegedly breached would be able to recover his money.
But he said he remained confident in the bank's ability to detect fraudulent transactions.
"Our systems and procedures caught this very quickly," he said. "We have policies in place to stop things like this from happening."
March 31, 2008 - 11:35PM
By Jeremy Roebuck/The Monitor
McALLEN - A 21-year-old bank employee is set to appear before a judge Wednesday on charges he stole money from a customer's account.
The U.S. Secret Service alleges Erik Alfredo Constante, of Mission, took $100,000 by forging the account holder's signature on a withdrawal slip.
He is accused of redeeming the slip on March 19 for cash - remnants of which federal authorities say they found during a search of his home a week later.
Constante, a new account executive at the International Bank of Commerce's downtown McAllen branch, was arrested Friday and has remained in the custody of U.S. Marshals pending a detention hearing set for Wednesday.
He maintains the customer requested he withdraw the money and that he hand-delivered it to a man he believed to be the account holder waiting in the bank office, said Secret Service agent Cameron Wolfley in an affidavit filed in the bank employee's case.
The Secret Service investigates financial crimes in addition to providing presidential protection.
Constante told agents that bank bags found in his home were purchased at H.E.B. and meant as a gift to his father, according to court documents filed in his case. But authorities say they found scraps of a money strip used to bind the cash that they later linked to the March 19 withdrawal.
A lawyer has not yet filed with the court to represent the bank employee.
Phone calls to his Mission home were not returned Monday.
R. David Guerra, president and CEO of IBC-McAllen, declined to specifically talk about Constante's case or whether the customer whose account was allegedly breached would be able to recover his money.
But he said he remained confident in the bank's ability to detect fraudulent transactions.
"Our systems and procedures caught this very quickly," he said. "We have policies in place to stop things like this from happening."
Labels: 000 dollars, 100, bank employee, from customer, ibc bank, mcallen, r.david guerra, steals money, theft, weslaco
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