Sunday, Sep 09, 2012
A Singaporean man is among eight people who allegedly tried to cheat the Nanyang Commercial Bank (NCB) in Hong Kong with fake cashier's orders.
According to Shin Min Daily News, the men visited the bank's head office in two separate groups at about 10am on Thursday and requested to set up bank accounts together.
Hong Kong police told South China Morning Post that they had presented two suspected fake cashier's orders in an attempt to deposit the money into the account.
A bank manager suspected the cashier's orders were forged and alerted the police at about 10.50am.
The men, a Singaporean, a 68-year-old Australian, four Indonesians and two Bruneians, were detained for questioning. The suspects are aged between 34 and 73, andn one of them have been charged.
A police officer told the media that their plot "was not a smart move", as the two documents would need to be examined carefully by bank staff due to such a huge amount.
Bank employees are capable of distinguishing forged bank documents from genuine ones, he said.
According to The New Paper, the suspected fake cashier's orders were promissory notes, where one party makes an unconditional promise in writing to pay a sum of money to the payee, either at a set time or on demand of the payee, under specific terms.
Police are looking into the backgrounds of all the suspects and are investigating the source of the suspected forged documents, said the paper.
A Nanyang Commercial Bank spokesman said it was not appropriate to comments as the case was under investigation.
