https://today.rtl.lu/news/luxembourg/a/2223010.html

The €61 million embezzlement scandal at Caritas has sparked widespread concerns from financial experts questioning how such a large-scale fraud could have occurred without insider involvement and why red flags were missed by banking institutions.

According to RTL sources, the €61 million embezzled in the Caritas scandal were transferred to 14 different accounts of a Spanish bank – the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) – at the beginning of the year, and that over a period of five months. Reports from Radio 100,7 allege that more than 100 transactions of less than €500,000 were made. Additional credit lines were needed for more than half of the €61 million.

Two of those credit lines were filed with Luxembourg-based banks: Spuerkeess and BGL BNP Paribas.

At present, RTL has not been able to verify whether one of the credit lines was approved with only one signature from a Caritas leadership member, whether a credit line was expanded without additional approval, or whether a credit line was refused.

The Caritas financial director carried out the transactions, as well as the credit line requests, on behalf of the non-profit organisation. Caritas director Marc Crochet, who filed a complaint in mid July, says he has suspected her to be behind the embezzlement from the very beginning. Following the complain, she turned herself in to the authorities, later indicating that she herself had been the victim of an 'executive phishing' case.

by Gfplux

3 comments

  1. “Caritas director Marc Crochet, who filed a complaint in mid July, says he has suspected her to be behind the embezzlement from the very beginning.” 

     Dude throws the first person he can under the bus. Doesn’t he realise that as director he’s responsible too!?  Dude handed over significant powers without establishing proper oversight or procedures.  

    There are only a couple of explanations for this fraud:
    – no or virtually no control mechanisms (such as double/triple signatures, review of cash movements, drawdowns of facilities) in place that could have prevented this or significantly reduced the amounts stolen,
    – banks acting recklessly and not spotting clearly fake signatures or executing instructions with the necessary signatures  
    – author being really good at faking signatures – author of the fraud having access to electronic signatures of the directors (which would be extremely daft). 

     and regardless of what explanation is correct, you’d think that the directors would notice that a substantial amount went missing: If you are a multinational dealing with daily payments worth millions, then you can be excused for not spotting immediately an employee stealing 10,000€. Here they stole what amounts to their annual budget… 

     Anyways, I bid my farewell to Caritas as I am not convinced that it will be able to recover from this 

  3. Looks like the criminals are investigating themselves.

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