Bank Digital Security Chief Admits $3.76 Million Fraud

Lloyds Banking Group Plc’s former head of digital banking fraud and security pleaded guilty to submitting false invoices totally more than 2.4 million pounds ($3.76 million), according to an article from Bloomberg.

Jessica Harper admitted to one count of fraud by abuse of position and one count of money laundering at a London court, according to a Crown Prosecution Service statement.

The fraud at the UK’s second-biggest state-backed lender is another blow to London’s reputation as a financial center, the article says, which has been tarnished by separate revelations that banks rigged the London Interbank Offered Rate and sold inappropriate derivatives to small business customers.

Harper has been “convicted of the type of crime the bank employed her to combat, said Sue Patten, head of the CPS Central Fraud Division, in the Bloomberg article. “She has admitted to a huge breach of trust against her former employer.”

Harper admitted to submitting the fake invoices between 2007 and 2011 and then laundering the proceeds, the CPS said. She will be sentenced on September 21, and faces up to 24 years in prison, the article says.