Gambling addict from Chemnitz - embezzled around 1 million Euro

A gambling addicted bank employee was embezzling customer’s funds over a long period. The total embezzled funds came up to around one million Euro. Now the perpetrator must answer in court for his actions. But will the bank customers now be saddled with the loss of their money?

Just a few months ago we had reported about another case in which another gambling addicted bank employee had embezzled around 460,000 Euro and gambled them away. The perpetrator was condemned to a two-year prison sentence by the district court of Kassel. In a similar case a bank employee from Chemnitz had embezzled a total of one million Euro over a long period.

Perpetrator embezzled from customers who do not have online banking

The accused Christian L. had purposely chosen bank accounts of customers who do not make use of online banking. Therefore, the bank customers involved did not realise that money was being wrongfully debited. During this time the bank employee was “helping himself” to different bank accounts and he had wrongfully transferred around one million Euro. According to his statement, in the beginning he had only embezzled money with the intention of paying it back. However, he soon realised that this was not possible anymore.

Christian L. was an advisor at the Commerzbank and he had around 300 customers. However, over a period of three years he had only targeted two families. In these cases, he had gradually raided both the securities accounts as well as the current accounts. The bank customers should now be receiving back the embezzled money from the Commerzbank so that they do not suffer any damages. In March 2022 we had reported in another case that an eighty-year-old nun had gambled away around 800,000 US-Dollars from the school funds.

Bank employee had been addicted to gambling for a long time

According to his own statement, the 48-year-old had already started making risky financial transactions way back in the nineties. He had then used the money he embezzled from his customers to finance the risky future transactions on the exchanges. Besides this, he had been increasingly gambling his money online and losing it. Recently he even described himself as gambling addicted. He could not use his account for his risky transactions anymore, because his account had already been seized prematurely. The Public Prosecutor’s Office is accusing the man of 178 criminal actions, in which he has allegedly embezzled a total of 952,400 Euro.

To cover his actions, the accused had among other things changed the address details of the families involved and then presented these manipulated bank statements upon request. Then he used to send the account notifications by post to himself instead of sending them to the bank customers.

Must the gambling addicted bank employee go to prison?

The accused admitted all charges during the court proceedings which are still ongoing. However, despite the fact that he admitted the charges, the bank employee, who is a gambling addict, must probably go to prison, since the criminal energy is high, and the amount of money involved is also quite substantial. Both the judge, as well as the prosecution had already indicated during the proceedings that the severity of the penalty would go beyond a suspended sentence. Till now no judgement has been taken.

Conclusion

The former bank employee’s penchant for risky future transactions on the exchanges together with his escalating gambling addiction drove him to financial ruin. The 48-year-old then found himself in such a situation that there is no way out and he thus started to embezzle his clients. Over the period of three years the sum embezzled from his clients’ accounts came up to nearly a million Euro. Now he is expected to receive a long prison sentence.

Image source: https://pixabay.com/de/illustrations/tresor-tresorraum-stahltür-913452/