Ex-bank staff charged with stealing over K80,000

By SCHOLAR KASSAS
A 25 YEAR-OLD MiBank former employee was charged in the Waigani Committal Court on Tuesday with two counts of stealing by false pretence for allegedly obtaining more than K80,000 from a customer.
Magistrate Danny Wakikura read out the charges to Tina Kumbuni, from Saragwandu village in Wosera-Gawi, East Sepik, and extended her K2,000 bail.
Wakikura said the matter would go through a committal process in which police were required to come up with evidence to support the charge.
He told Kumbuni she was innocent until proven guilty and adjourned the matter to June 30 for mention and set bail conditions.
Police alleged on Feb 9, 2021, Kumbuni was working with the Waigani branch of MiBank Ltd when Martha Emilio, a retired nurse deposited her final entitlements of K197,834.28.
Emilio deposited another payment which was her Nambawan Super government contributions totalling K78,155.37 on Aug 24.
On July 28, Emilio went to the bank and saw Kumbuni to change her phone PIN setup to register phone-banking. It was this occasion where Kumbuni changed the phone numbers from 76815709 to 75200224.
After changing the numbers, Kumbuni instructed Martha to only use an ATM and Eftpos because phone banking costs more.
Emilio did as she was instructed and did not use her phone banking.
It was alleged that Kumbuni allegedly used the phone banking to transfer funds from Emilio’s account to two accounts, a MiBank account and Kina Bank account.
She allegedly transferred funds totalling K46,006.50 and K36,062.50 to her accounts which were identified as hers on a bank statement.
On Dec 30, Emilio went to an ATM and found out that the balance on her account was not right.
She reported the matter to MiBank and she was informed that her balance was only K29.51.
Emilio reported the matter to CID Fraud Squad at Boroko and Kumbuni was arrested, interviewed and charged.