Four years after the massive theft of data from 9 million of its current and past customers, Desjardins is once again investigating one of its employees, this time suspected of having stolen nearly $3 million, has learned The newspaper.
According to our information, the fraud occurred a few months ago at the Caisse populaire de Saint-Hubert, on the South Shore of Montreal.
Several employees have been met in recent weeks and investigators from the institution were able to question the suspected person last Friday.
Financial frauds related to employees are not necessarily rare in the banking sector, but in this case, the extent of the alleged offense is serious enough for Desjardins Group’s senior management to have been informed.
Cooperation with the police
Desjardins spokesperson Jean-Benoît Turcotti would not specify the amount of money diverted, but sources told the Log that the amount at stake would be around $3 million.
“Checks are underway regarding this situation. Desjardins is collaborating with the police and in order not to interfere with the work of the police and our internal checks, we cannot provide any additional information,” he said.
According to Turcotti, “no member or customer suffered any financial loss” from the incident.
However, this type of case often results in a loss absorbed by the institution, and therefore all of its members, according to our sources, who do not know if Desjardins will be able to recover the sums lost in this case.
A real plague
According to KPMG, internal fraud is widespread. More than 17% of businesses in North America have been victims in recent months.
In total, all financial losses linked to fraud and cybercrime reached $530 million last year in the country, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. This is a 40% jump from the $380M lost in 2021.
In recent years, Desjardins has been talked about for security issues related to the theft of data that affected 9 million former or current customers.
The case, revealed to the public in 2019, broke out internally in December 2018 when Desjardins noticed a suspicious transaction, which prompted him to file a complaint with the Laval police.
In this case, we were not talking about misappropriation, but the personal information would have been bought on the black market by brokers who wanted to target potential customers, and it was resold on the dark web.
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