Bank programmer jailed after stealing ‘free’ cash from ATMs

Qin Qisheng took advantage of an ATM glitch to fleece hundreds of thousands of dollars. But last year, his scam came to an abrupt end.

A bank programmer is behind bars after taking advantage of an ATM glitch to pinch more than $1.4 million in “free” cash.

The racket started after Qin Qisheng, from Beijing in China, noticed a loophole in Huaxia Bank’s system in 2016.

The 43-year-old, who worked as a senior programmer at the bank, realised withdrawals that were completed close to midnight were not being recorded properly.

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That meant customers could access cash from machines without the amount of money in their accounts being affected.

According to the South China Morning Post, Mr Qisheng then inserted scripts in the system so that he could “test” the issue without causing an alert to be issued to staff.

From November 2016 for almost a year, he made a series of withdrawals of up to 20,000 yuan ($AU4194) at a time from a dummy account used by the bank to test its own systems.

By January 2018 he had raked in over seven million yuan — the equivalent of more than $AU1.4 million — without telling his bosses what he was up to.

He was eventually caught after squirrelling much of the money away into his own bank account, with some also invested in the stock market.

Huaxia argued its employee should have reported the issue, but it also accepted Mr Qisheng’s claims that he had simply been investigating the glitch and decided to drop the case after he returned the cash.

Bizarrely, the bank wanted to drop the charges, arguing the theft had ultimately saved it time and money. Picture: iStock

That stance was taken after the bank admitted a formal investigation would have been time consuming and labour intensive, and that Mr Qisheng ‘s decision to investigate it himself probably saved the institution time and money.

“Qin Qisheng said that the matter was complicated and involved lots of work … he believed the bank would not pay attention even if he reported it,” the South China Morning Post reported a bank representative as saying during the trial.

“We think this reason for not reporting is legitimate.”

However, police did not want to drop the charges and he was found guilty of theft in December — a decision that was recently upheld on appeal.

As a result, Mr Qisheng was jailed for ten and a half years and was ordered to pay a 11,000 yuan ($AU2306) fine.

By January 2018 he had raked in over seven million yuan — the equivalent of more than $AU1.4 million. Picture: iStock

“On the one hand, (the bank) said that the accused’s behaviour was in violation of the rules. On the other hand he said that he could conduct relevant tests. This is self-contradictory,” the judge said, according to the South China Morning Post.

“After reviewing the papers, speaking to the appellant and listening to the opinions of the defenders, we believed that the facts of the case were clear and decided not to have another trial,” the Beijing Intermediate People’s Court said after the unsuccessful appeal was concluded.

“The case is closed.”

The flaw that allowed Mr Qisheng to take the cash has now been fixed.

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Originally published as Bank programmer jailed after stealing ‘free’ cash from ATMs