A South African businessman who invested in a fund managed by Bank of Valletta has accused the bank of "fraudulently" transferring money to an Indonesian bank account.

In a judicial protest, he asked the courts to order Bank of Valletta to refund him the €70,000 which had been withdrawn.

Lawyer Alessandro Lia explained that his client, who was unnamed, invested €100,000 in a fund managed by BOV subsidiary Valletta Fund Services Limited, in April 2014.

Some time later, €70,000 of his investment was transferred to an Indonesian bank, without his knowledge.

Dr Lia said it was only when the man received an e-mail from BOV querying a second request to have the rest of the funds transferred too that he realised that the €70,000 had been transferred.

The lawyer said his client informed BOV that he had made no such request and asked to be sent a copy of the instructions upon which it had acted.

The bank supplied him with copies of the two sets of instructions which it had received from an unidentified third-party who had used confidential details which the businessman had submitted to the bank, asking for the funds to be transferred to a foreign account.

Dr Lia said the man subsequently instructed the bank not to process any further requests on his account.

He claimed that BOV had processed the original fraudulent instructions and transferred the funds from his investment account to an account in Indonesia.
Dr Lia said a police report was filed but the police did not manage to trace the funds.

He said his client was giving the bank two weeks to refund the €70,000 that had been withdrawn without his authorisation and also held it responsible for any losses.