A former Newington bank-branch employee has been charged with stealing nearly $112,000 from several customer accounts, federal prosecutors say.
Alexander Alvarez, 32, of East Lyme was arrested Wednesday and held after appearing before a federal magistrate in Bridgeport on charges related to the alleged theft, the office of Connecticut U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly said.
Alvarez is due in Hartford federal court Friday for a detention hearing. Alvarez could not be immediately reached late Wednesday for comment.
According to investigators, Alvarez worked from January 2012 to February 2013 as a financial representative in the branch of a federal deposit-insured lender identified only as “Bank A’’ in the indictment. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney’s office said he lacked information about the bank’s identity.
Starting from December 2012 and lasting to around May 2013, Alvarez identified accounts that had little banking activity, prosecutors said. He then caused the mailing address for the accounts he targeted to be changed from the owner’s address to a fraudulent address so that transactions in the accounts would not be immediately discovered by the account owner.
Alvarez then created fraudulent transfer slips to transfer the funds to another account that he believed was dormant, or to an account that he directly controlled, or to be issued in a bank check, authorities said.
Once the funds were transferred from the owner’s account, Alvarez withdrew the funds from the bank in cash or via an ATM card, or transferred them to his personal banking account, investigators said.
In all, he allegedly stole $100,806.85 from one bank customer and $11,137.01 from a second, they said.
Bank fraud carries a maximum jail term of 30 years and up to a $1 million fine.
