Maldivian Deputy Country Manager involved in BOC embezzlement jailed

A former senior official at the Bank of Ceylon (BOC) Male’ Branch has been sentenced to prison after being found guilty of orchestrating a fraudulent scheme to embezzle hundreds of thousands of US dollars from a customer’s account using forged documents.

Criminal Court delivered its verdict against Hassan Waheed, M. Maahinne, Male’, the former Deputy Country Manager and Compliance Officer at BOC, on Thursday.

The verdict in the case presided by Judge Ali Nadeem concludes legal proceedings that have been ongoing since 2019. Hassan Waheed was convicted on two charges: knowingly creating forged documents and unlawfully exercising authority over another person’s property.

The court applied sentencing guidelines that permitted a reduction in the severity of the penalties. In this regard, for unlawfully exercising authority over property, Waheed was sentenced to two years, nine months and 11 days in prison and fined MVR 144,000. He received a further six months and 18 days in prison for forgery, along with a fine of MVR 18,000.

According to the court’s findings, on June 9, 2019, Hassan Waheed prepared a fraudulent fund transfer request in the name of a female Maldivian customer without her knowledge or consent. The document sought to transfer USD 150,000 from her account.

Waheed enlisted the assistance of a bank employee to process the forged document, successfully transferring USD 150,000 to an account belonging to Abdulla Nafeeq Pasha. Within five minutes of the transaction, at 10:44am on the same day, the funds were transferred again, this time from Pasha’s account to an account held by "Senior International Private Limited."

Senior International subsequently used the funds to settle invoices issued by four overseas companies. Investigations revealed that the SWIFT applications for these payments had been submitted on June 2, 2019, six days before the funds were misappropriated. Audit reports also identified an earlier unauthorized transfer of USD 110,000 from the same customer’s account on July 18, 2018, which followed the same route through Nafeeq Pasha to Senior International.

The conviction was supported by digital forensic findings and CCTV footage. Investigators discovered a temporary Microsoft Word file containing the fraudulent transfer request on the CPU used by Hassan Waheed. CCTV footage further corroborated when the document was printed and showed Waheed collecting it from the printer.

The court also highlighted evidence indicating that the customer’s signature had been forged. Scraps of paper containing practice attempts at reproducing the victim’s signature were found in Waheed’s cabin. A forensic document examination subsequently confirmed that the signature on the transfer request had been forged using a 'simulated method.'

The investigation uncovered close personal and financial connections among the individuals involved. Ibrahim Zainal Arif, Managing Director of Senior International, was identified as a close associate, former roommate and business partner of Hassan Waheed. Nafeeq Pasha was identified as Zainal’s stepfather. Financial records also showed that Senior International had been depositing MVR 52,500 into Waheed’s BML account each month since November 2018, amounting to a total of MVR 367,500.

The court also noted that Waheed had attempted to conceal the fraud from other bank employees. When the victim visited the bank on June 10, 2019, to report the missing funds, Waheed initially acknowledged the fraud to her. However, he subsequently attempted to mislead other staff members by claiming that the matter had been resolved and that the customer had simply forgotten about the transaction.

The court concluded that the prosecution had established both charges beyond a reasonable doubt.