(25 January 2004 – Hong Kong) Two senior Bank of China employees have done a disappearing act after allegedly embezzling one billion Chinese yuan.According to Hong Kong media, BOC is investigating both the vanished funds and staff members at the bank’s Harbin branch in Heilongjiang province.
This is the latest crisis to hit the bank in recent times despite reassurances from BOC that it had improved its internal systems and processes to prevent such incidents from occurring.
The incident was brought to the bank’s attention when Shanghai based Northeast Expressway said 290 million yuan had disappeared from shareholders’ funds deposited in BOC’s Hesong street sub branch.
Subsequent investigations revealed that a further 700 million yuan was missing from the branch.