Ex-MUFG Bank Employee Arrested over Safe Deposit Thefts

Tokyo, Jan. 14 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo police arrested Yukari Imamura, a 46-year-old former employee of MUFG Bank, on Tuesday for allegedly stealing gold ingots worth 260 million yen from customers' safe deposit boxes at the bank.

The Metropolitan Police Department suspects Imamura of stealing gold ingots weighing some 20 kilograms that belonged to two clients of the bank's Nerima branch in Tokyo in around September last year. She has admitted to the allegations, according to the police.

At least some 60 clients have been victims of the safe deposit box thefts involving Imamura, with the total damage expected to exceed 1 billion yen, according to the bank's probe.

She is believed to have exchanged the ingots for cash at several pawn shops and spent the money mainly on investments.

Imamura has told police investigators that she lost money on foreign exchange margin trading and horse racing and that she had a lot of debt, according to people familiar with the investigation.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]