Ex-UOB employee convicted of leaking records of more than 1,000 customers to scammers
A former United Overseas Bank (UOB) employee was convicted on Tuesday (14 Oct) of disclosing the personal information of more than 1,000 customers to scammers who claimed to be from the Shanghai police.
She also checked the information of over 3,300 customers without their consent and asked colleagues and her parents to give her S$100,000 for “bail”.
Cao Wenqing, a 30-year-old Singapore permanent resident and Chinese national, was found guilty of 14 charges under the Computer Misuse Act and 13 under the Banking Act.
While Cao argued that she had been scammed into doing so, District Judge James Elisha Lee said Cao had tertiary education and had received training on confidentiality.
This meant she knew that extracting or sharing customer data was strictly prohibited.
Contacted by scammers posing as Chinese police officers
The court heard that Cao was a junior officer in UOB’s mortgage department, authorised to access the customer database for work purposes such as servicing existing clients and selling mortgages.
Source: UOB Group. Photo for illustration purposes only.
In March 2021, she was contacted by two individuals — “Xiang Ying Dong” and “Captain Lu” — who claimed to be officers from China’s police force.
They told Cao that she was assisting in an investigation and asked her to search UOB’s database for customers who were Chinese nationals.
Sent photos of customers’ data over WhatsApp to scammers
Cao then used her work-issued laptop to search for common Chinese surnames in the bank’s system, identifying customers who were Chinese nationals, CNA reported.
She copied their names, identification numbers, bank balances and phone numbers into an Excel spreadsheet, took photos of the file, and sent them to “Lu” via WhatsApp before deleting the images.
Source: assalve on Canva. Photo for illustration purposes only.
At times, she also conducted searches on specific customers when instructed and sent screenshots of their profiles.
Cao also gave S$100,000 to the scammers.
According to Shin Min Daily News, she got the money from her colleagues and parents, saying that she had to pay “bail” to the “police officers”.
According to the prosecution, Cao complied to the requests because she feared being investigated by the Chinese authorities and wanted to avoid returning to China or losing her job.
The prosecutor said that Cao knew “that what she was doing in Singapore was contrary to the bank’s policies and illegal under Singapore law, but went ahead anyway”.
Reported the incident after realising it was a scam
Cao eventually reported the matter to the Singapore Police Force on 22 April 2021 after realising that she had been deceived.
In court, she contested the charges and said that she was a victim of the scam.
However, Judge Lee said it was “unreasonable” that she had failed to verify the identities of the people who contacted her.
He added that she could have easily done so by calling the Shanghai police herself — which she eventually did only after realising she had fallen victim to a scam.
The leaked data affected more than 1,000 UOB customers.
According to CNA, Cao will return to court for mitigation and sentencing in December with her lawyer.
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Featured image adapted from firmbee on Unsplash and UOB Group.
