A 35-year-old woman has been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for her role in what was described as a meticulously orchestrated fraud scheme involving the unlawful access and manipulation of a customer’s banking profile, reports The Herald.

The Gqeberha Regional Court had found Lusanda Qose, a former sales and service consultant at First National Bank at Pier 14, guilty of fraud, cyber fraud and the unlawful use of a customer’s credentials following her abuse of internal banking systems between 22 January and 24 April 2024.

Qose used her employee number to access FNB’s core operating system, which contains confidential customer and transactional information.

Qose unlawfully changed the complainant, Mlungwana Maranti’s cellphone number on the bank’s system using her employee credentials, diverting all one-time-pin authorisations to herself without the his knowledge or consent.

She further created a second bank card linked to the complainant’s accounts, which she used to transfer funds between his two accounts and conducted multiple ATM withdrawals over three months.

These fraudulent transactions resulted in a loss of R245000.

The bank refunded the complainant and absorbed the financial loss. The court found that Qose’s actions were premeditated and sophisticated, involving multiple system breaches over an extended period.

She pleaded guilty to all charges, citing financial distress as her motive. She has since repaid R87 000 through a deduction from her pension fund and expressed remorse for her actions.

In a victim impact statement facilitated by court preparation officer Eric Blouw, Maranti detailed the emotional toll the crime had taken on him, detailing the trauma of watching his retirement savings vanish.

The court heard that Qose was fully aware that the funds she stole were earmarked to grow the complainant’s retirement nest egg.

Full report in The Herald