An Indian origin private banker was sentenced to 13 years jail on Thursday in Singapore after he pleaded guilty to 20 forgery and cheating charges, and another 30 charges under the Computer Misuse Act for $10 million.
During the sentencing of Kale Jagdish Purushottam, 43, another 503 similar charges were taken into consideration for siphoning $10 million from accounts of Barclays Bank clients between June 2010 and January 2013, reported The Straits Times.
In an attempt to pay back his former clients, Kale forged signatures to siphon off $10 million from his present clients.
He then made more unauthorized transactions to recover and replace the sum but ended up with extra losses of at least $10 million instead.
Before joining the British bank in February 2010, Kale worked for UBS Singapore where he was the relationship manager for a company named Red Oak, which alleged that Kale had involved in unauthorized foreign exchange transactions using the money in its account.
Ng Jean Ting, the Deputy Public Prosecutor said Kale agreed to pay Red Oak $14 million to avoid a legal case.
However, Kale paid the firm with money from his Barclays clients’ bank accounts.
Ting told the court that Kale passed off the forged documents by copying and pasting the genuine signatures of authorized signatories into his own computer file.
To cover up the deficit in the bank accounts of his three clients, he forged more documents to move money between his other client accounts.
He made about 81 unauthorized fund transfers in this manner.
Kale also forged documents to create accounts in his clients’ names that would permit him to take up loans. These loan sums were then transferred to Red Oak or used to cover up the other unauthorized fund transfers, said the deputy public prosecutor.
He raised 162 loans in the accounts maintained by six of his clients, according to the Singapore daily’s report.
To cover up the loss of his clients’, Kale tried to make money through unauthorized stock and foreign exchange transactions using his clients’ accounts, she added.
“However, the unauthorized trades and other transactions caused further net losses of at least $10 million to Barclays,” said DPP Ng.
On February 1, 2013, the Commercial Affairs Department received information that Kale might have forged his clients’ signatures. He was also sacked in the same month.
Defense Counsel Anand Nalachandran told the court that Kale had not made the transfers or trades for personal financial benefit, but to comply with what he thought was an obligation.
“Having just moved to Barclays, he was faced with allegations (from Red Oak), and instead of heeding the advice, he rather rashly acted and then did these things to satisfy his obligation,” said Anand.
However, District Judge Ong Hian Sun pointed out that there was a “grave breach of trust” on Kale’s end.
According to court documents, Barclays managed to recover $4 million after a settlement with Red Oak and Kale made returns of $400,000 to the bank.
For each count of forgery for the intent of cheating, Kale could have been jailed for up to 10 years and penalized.
