Immigration police arrested a Belgian man in Phnom Penh on Monday for using a forged passport to withdraw nearly $50,000 from Canadia Bank, officials said on Tuesday.
Kanzi Francis Olivier, 38, was arrested shortly after attempting to withdraw money from a Canadia branch in Tuol Kok district at about 11 a.m. on Monday, according to Luor Rabo, a deputy municipal police chief handling the case.
According to a police report provided by Mr. Rabo, Mr. Olivier arrived in the country on March 3 and used a forged passport to withdraw money from Canadia’s headquarters in Daun Penh district on Friday.
“The bank complained that he had used a fake Belgian passport to withdraw money at the bank. He withdrew $48,000 on March 17, 2016,” the report states. “On March 21, he tried to withdraw some money again, but bank employees cooperated with the police to detain him.”
Canadia CEO Michael Lor said the bank contacted authorities after staff were “alerted to a potential fraudulent inward telegraphic transfer by the sender bank in Hong Kong,” declining to discuss the case further as the investigation was ongoing.
Mr. Rabo said Mr. Olivier confessed to the crime under questioning at the municipal police headquarters on Monday afternoon.
“He admitted that he used fake documents, and we decided to send him to the court,” he said.
Prak Vanna, chief of the municipal police’s immigration bureau, said Mr. Olivier was questioned at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday.
“The court did not finish questioning him and sent him back to police custody. Tomorrow, we will send him back [to court] again,” he said.
Canadia was hit by theft of larger scale in 2014, when a former manager was convicted of forgery and breach of trust after admitting to embezzling $2.3 million from the bank between March and October of 2013.
(Additional reporting by Ben Paviour)
