A man who used to work at the HSBC Bank contact centre in Swatar was yesterday given a suspended jail term after he admitted to stealing €27,000 from a customer account.

Carl Vella, 28, from Mosta, who is now works as a computer salesman,used the company’s software to illegally take money from a customer’s account.

During the short arraignment yesterday, Mr Vella stood in the dock, with his parents seated behind him, as Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera noted his previous good conduct.

The prosecuting officer, Police Inspector Angelo Gafà, told the court that about €10,200 of the money stolen had been returned.

Magistrate Scerri Herrera sentenced him to a term of two years’ imprisonment, suspended for four, and ordered him to pay the balance within six months.

The man was represented by lawyer Gianluca Caruana Curran.

The bank explained later that the Swatar contact centre only serviced UK customers.

HSBC also specified that the fraud took place in the UK and not in Malta.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.