Former UOB bank employee convicted of disclosing details of over 1,000 customers to scammer

SINGAPORE: A former United Overseas Bank (UOB) employee was convicted on Tuesday (Oct 14) of multiple charges over disclosing the information of more than 1,000 customers to a scammer.

Cao Wenqing, a 30-year-old Singapore permanent resident and Chinese national, was convicted of 14 charges under the Computer Misuse Act and 13 charges under the Banking Act.

She had contested the charges, saying she had been deceived by people claiming to be from the Shanghai police.

However, District Judge James Elisha Lee on Tuesday said Cao had tertiary education qualifications and was given training that made her fully aware of the highly confidential and sensitive nature of customer information, as well as the restrictions on their disclosure.

She also knew it was against the bank's policy for her to extract customer information.

Judge Lee said it was "unreasonable" in his view for Cao not to have taken any steps to verify the identities of the two people who contacted her. 

She could have easily done this by calling the Shanghai police herself, which she subsequently did, after reading an article on a similar scam, said the judge.

According to the prosecution's case, Cao was a junior officer working in the mortgage department and was permitted to access the customer database only for her work.

This was for selling mortgages to new customers and servicing existing customers with mortgages.

In March 2021, Cao was contacted by a "Xiang Ying Dong" and a "Captain Lu", who claimed to be police officers from China.

She later agreed to act as a person assisting the police on a voluntary basis for Lu. Lu asked her to search for customers on the database, focusing on those who were Chinese nationals, and provide him their details.

Cao used her work-issued laptop to access the database and searched for common Chinese surnames before going into each profile to see if they were Chinese nationals. If they were, she would copy their names, identification numbers, bank balances and phone numbers into an Excel spreadsheet.

After compiling the information of 50 to 100 customers, she would take photos of the spreadsheet and send them to Lu via WhatsApp before deleting the photos.

Cao also carried out searches on specific customers when Lu asked her to, and sent screenshots of customer profiles from the database to Lu.

Cao reported the matter to the Singapore Police Force on Apr 22, 2021 after she realised she was being scammed.

The prosecutor said Cao complied with Lu's requests because she was worried about purported investigations against her and felt pressure to cooperate with the Chinese police, whom she regarded as powerful.

She also wanted to avoid returning to China and potentially losing her job.

"She knew that what she was doing in Singapore was contrary to the bank's policies and illegal under Singapore law, but went ahead anyway," said Deputy Public Prosecutor Ryan Lim.

Cao is defended by Mr Kalidass Murugaiyan.

She will return to court for mitigation and sentencing in December.