Breaking the bank
A Gramercy Park bank teller is suspected of tapping into the accounts of at least 14,000 HSBC customers to help siphon off more than $200,000 of their dough, police sources said yesterday.
Danielle Bragg, 25, of The Bronx had quietly toiled behind the window of the HSBC branch on Third Avenue for months while allegedly helping accomplices bilk the unsuspecting customers, the sources said.
Bragg carried out her criminal antics between July and December last year, authorities said.
She would infiltrate the accounts, most of which belonged to customers outside New York state, court documents charge.
Bragg would then allegedly print out the customers’ personal information and account numbers and hand them over to her partners in crime.
Posing as actual HSBC customers, the accomplices would make illegal withdrawals from the victims’ accounts, court records allege.
The scheme fell apart after one of the alleged cohorts, Echella Brown, was busted on Dec. 16 trying to withdraw $7,000 from an account at an HSBC bank at the Walt Whitman mall in Huntington, LI, according to court records.
Brown allegedly had a printout record from a compromised account.
Police then reviewed HSBC’s internal records and found Bragg had viewed the customer’s account at the same time the record was printed out.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said Bragg was arrested Friday and charged with scheming to defraud and 43 counts of computer trespass.
Authorities said they believe the amount of stolen funds in the case will rise as more victims come forward.
HSBC spokesman Neil Brazil said: “HSBC Bank USA takes the security of its customers’ account information very seriously. As soon this issue came to light as a result of an internal investigation, we notified the proper authorities.”
