Former MUFG Bank Employee Allegedly Stole Gold Bars in Elaborate Scheme
A former employee of MUFG Bank has been arrested in connection with the theft of gold bars from customer safe deposit boxes. The 46-year-old suspect, identified as Yukari Imamura, is believed to have exploited the bank's access control system to carry out the thefts both during and after business hours.
According to investigative sources, Imamura reportedly disabled the power source of the access system before entering the safe deposit box area, a tactic she may have employed to mask her illicit actions. She was apprehended on Tuesday for allegedly stealing approximately 20 kilograms of gold bars valued at around 260 million yen (approximately $1.6 million), which belonged to two male customers at the bank's Nerima branch in Tokyo.
Authorities are probing further into Imamura's activities, as they suspect that she may have stolen a total of over 1.7 billion yen from the safe deposit boxes of more than 60 customers over a span of roughly four and a half years. Imamura has confessed to the theft of the gold bars, and police investigations suggest that she may have incurred substantial financial losses due to foreign exchange margin trading and gambling on horse racing.
In response to the incident, MUFG Bank, the principal banking entity of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., is taking significant disciplinary measures. The bank announced that it will reduce the salary of CEO Junichi Hanzawa by 30 percent for three months as a consequence of the theft. Additionally, Chairman Naoki Hori and three other executives are also facing salary cuts.
Investigators revealed that while many of the alleged thefts occurred after the bank's counters had closed at 3 p.m., there were instances where Imamura is believed to have committed thefts during operational hours. Imamura, who held the position of acting branch manager, had access to spare keys kept in sealed envelopes at the Nerima branch, which she allegedly accessed before resealing them with glue to cover her tracks.
