Kota Kinabalu: A former bank teller was slapped with a fine of RM8,000 or 20 months jail by the Magistrate’s Court here Tuesday for accessing a bank’s computer without authorisation two years ago.
Mohd Arwi Awang Asal, 28, pleaded guilty before Magistrate Lovely Natasha Charles to committing the offence by changing the telephone number in Bank Rakyat’s Web Branch Delivery System (BDS) and cancelled the old ATM card as well as issuing a new ATM card to a Bank Rakyat account that belonged to one Obed Benjamin Yanggau with fraudulent intent to cause loss to Obed.
The offence took place at the Bank Rakyat Branch in Penampang between June 27 and July 19, 2019.
Arwi, whose case came up for trial on Tuesday, changed his plea to guilty to the charge under Section 4 of the Computer Crimes Act 1997, which provides for a fine not exceeding RM150,000 or imprisonment for up to 10 years, or both, on conviction.
Inspector Kelvan Elson Maik, prosecuting, told the court that an executive of the bank’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur had on Aug 5, 2019 received a complaint from a customer, Obed, complaining that a telephone number registered on his internet banking has been converted to someone else’s telephone number without his knowledge.
Kelvan said the executive then checked the bank’s BDS web and found that a clerk of the Bank Rakyat Penampang branch, Mohd Arwi had several times misused Obed’s data conversion without his knowledge.
Among them was that Arwi had changed Obed’s phone number twice in July 2019 and had also cancelled his existing ATM card and issued a new ATM card on June 27, 2019 without Obed’s knowledge and presence, said Kelvan, adding that, the PIN number for the new ATM Card was also changed on Aug 2, 2019 without Obed’s knowledge.
The executive then lodged a police report on behalf of the bank for investigation, the court heard.
Counsel Lim Ming Zoong @ Lawrence representing Arwi, requested for a lower fine on the grounds, among others, that Arwi contribution as a bank teller for six years should be considered as service to the government and the people.
Lim also said that Arwi is currently unemployed after he was terminated from his job as a teller at the said bank. He is currently struggling to support his family, as he had to take care of his ageing mother and younger brother too.
There was also no actual monetary loss, which affected the complainant, and neither did Arwi profited from the transaction and that the only reason he was involved to the charge was that he unintentionally neglected his job as a teller, said Lim.
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