Ex-employee of Australia’s NAB charged over ‘gatekeeper’ role in major crime syndicate

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By Christine Chen and Scott Murdoch

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Police arrested and charged a former National Australia Bank employee who they alleged was the “gatekeeper of funds” for a sophisticated Sydney crime syndicate that has been accused of defrauding “all financial institutions.”

Early Thursday, financial crime detectives arrested a 36-year-old man at a property in western Sydney and seized A$60,000 ($38,988) worth of luxury jewellery and watches, police said on Friday. 

The man, whom court records named as Timotius “Donny” Sungkar, was refused bail and has been charged with 19 offences including using dishonesty to obtain financial advantage, participating in a criminal group and recklessly dealing with crime proceeds.

Police said the syndicate allegedly orchestrated fake car financing schemes and loan fraud amounting to more than A$200 million, which affected “all financial institutions”.

The accused man worked at Australia’s third-largest bank by market value for more than a decade, police said. 

In his role as a senior business banking manager, he allegedly facilitated A$10 million in fraudulent business loans for a Sydney fraud and money laundering syndicate over a period of at least three years, they said.

“This person, as far as I’m concerned, is the gatekeeper of funds,” Detective Superintendent Gordon Arbinja said at a news conference on Friday. He said the syndicate was one of the largest he had seen in his career. 

“Without this person, the fraud cannot be facilitated. So he’s in a position of trust. He violated that trust.”

Sungkar’s barrister, Slade Howell, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, NAB said it had “zero tolerance for employees who engage in criminal conduct,” adding that it acted swiftly to investigate before terminating the person’s employment. NAB did not identify the former employee.

NAB said it was working with police and there was no impact on customers.

In July, police arrested two men believed to be the syndicate’s ringleaders – charging them with a combined 194 offences – and seized A$38 million in assets including two Bentleys and a Ferrari.

“There will be several more arrests that are similar to the one that happened yesterday,” Arbinja said, with police now focused on “professional facilitators” of the syndicate including bankers, mortgage brokers and lawyers.

Macquarie Group said it would check if it was exposed to the syndicate’s activities.

“The team will definitely be doing work on it as it’s just been disclosed,” CEO Shemara Wikramanayake told Reuters.

“Business banking is very small relative to our lending book, we mostly do (small- and medium-enterprise) lending but we will have a look.”

Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac declined to comment.

($1 = 1.5389 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Christine Chen and Scott Murdoch in Sydney; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)