Hulbert Thomas, 27, Neil Bautista, 22, and Mawli Thurairajah, 30, are accused of attempting to embezzle more than $3.4 million from Lloyds TSB customer accounts . The suspects were all Lloyds TSB bank employees .
According to the Oxford Mail, the three had installed a monitoring device on a colleague's computer that allowed them to collect the information needed to transfer money from the bank's customer accounts.
The thefts took place in the summer of 2012 at Halifax branches in Slough, Newbury and Camden. Halifax is a division of Bank of Scotland, which is a subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group.
Prosecutors say the fraudsters monitored “the mouse, keyboard and storage device.” The monitoring device they used allowed them to remotely access the target computer over the Internet. All of their transactions took place when the bank was closed.
The suspects are believed to have attempted to steal over $3,400,000, but the actual loss to the bank is approximately $738,000.
The thefts were uncovered when a manager at a Halifax branch noticed a suspicious transaction worth tens of thousands of pounds in a customer's account.
An investigation revealed that a total of £605,000 ($1,000,000 / €735,000) was transferred to 13 different accounts. The hacking device was discovered during an internal investigation.
