A bank executive has drained over $60k from a dead customer’s account, telling his colleague that he’s in touch with the client.
A former executive at PNC Bank, the seventh-largest bank in the U.S., has confessed to stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the account of a deceased customer.
Lamont Hankins, a former branch manager, pleaded guilty to taking $60,181 from the account of a customer who passed away several years ago, according to reports from Cleveland.com.
Hankins began his theft in late 2021, about six years after the customer’s death.
The account had been opened in June 1971, and the customer died on September 22, 2015.
His role as branch manager provided him with extensive access to customer accounts and information. To carry out his scheme, Hankins lied to other bank employees and created fake documents.
On September 8, 2021, he falsely claimed to have spoken to the deceased account holder about reactivating her dormant account.
He then changed the account’s address in the bank’s system and issued two debit cards linked to the account.
Over time, Hankins conducted 193 transactions from the account, including money transfers and purchases such as an airline ticket.
In December 2021, while transferring funds, he deceived a bank teller by claiming that the deceased customer was his aunt and suggested he had opened a new account in her name to hide money from his wife.
Hankins is scheduled to be sentenced in February 2025, facing up to 16 months in prison.
He has agreed to repay the full amount he stole.
PNC Bank, which has approximately $559.7 billion in consolidated assets, ranks seventh in the U.S. by total assets, according to Federal Reserve data.
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