Police seek bank fraud 'blonde'

WHEN this young woman walks into a bank and asks to withdraw a large amount of cash, male staff are only too happy to oblige. She is well dressed, well spoken and can supply all the right documents.

It is usually some time after she has left with the money that the bank discovers it has been conned. For she is believed to be a member of a gang which steals the identities of wealthy women before emptying their accounts.

Police believe she has got away with at least £100,000, while the entire gang could have stolen up to five times that amount. This photograph (right) was attached to a fake passport which the woman, in her late twenties, left behind at a bank in East Anglia when she calmly walked out as staff went to check her details.

Detective Constable John Gibbens, of Suffolk Police, said: 'She always targets male tellers instead of other women because she knows she will be able to charm them. She is very calm, collected and professional and usually gets past all the tellers and sometimes managers with ease.

'She normally 'power dresses' and speaks very well. A male bank manager who I spoke to admitted that he was completely hoodwinked by her because she was so plausible and confident.'

In one recent case she withdrew £22,000 from the same account in two days from three branches in Sudbury, Stowmarket and Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. She then tried to draw £20,000 from the same account at another branch in Diss, Norfolk, but left when staff became suspicious.

Two other women thought to be working the same territory are also described as blonde and attractive. Mr Gibbens suspects the women might be part of a much bigger gang and is trying to discover how they secured their victims' bank account details.

One theory is that they might be going through dustbins and rubbish bags in wealthy areas of London to find discarded bank statements and other personal details. It is also possible account holders are duped into revealing details about their accounts and addresses by answering spam e-mails.

Detectives have not discounted the idea that a crooked bank employee could be giving the gang details of accounts because the same high street bank, whose name is not being disclosed, is involved in most of the cases.

Before the raids, the bank receives a call from someone purporting to be a customer who has lost her bank card. They are persuaded to send out a replacement card to a new address which turns out to be a pick-up point used by the gang.

'We would advise bank customers to check their accounts regularly,' said Mr Gibbens, adding: 'If they only check monthly, it can set the inquiry back by at least a month and by that time CCTV footage has usually gone.'