Internet Fraud Casebook

Chapter 16. The Reckless Clerk

OLEG LYKOV

Mikhail Dutov had just started climbing the career ladder. He was 22 years old, recently graduated from Plekhanov Academy of Economy (a prestigious Russian university), and had been hired in a starter position of customer relationships manager at a branch of WestBank, one of the largest banks in Russia. He had worked in the bank for about a year and people were sure he would be successful. Gossiping tongues, though, attributed his success to the fact that the branch manager was a family friend. An objective observer would have noticed that Mikhail lacked self-confidence and might easily fall under someone else's influence.

The branch where Mikhail worked was located in the center of Moscow, in a popular and crowded area. Mikhail's position was to assist customers who came into the branch and explain the bank's products and services to them, and to bring business into the institution. He was assigned sales targets and was reaching them quite well. Mikhail had recently started working with VIP clients, too. He was happy about his work and looked to his future with enthusiasm.

WestBank Conflict

Previously I worked as the Country Fraud Risk Manager in the Russian subsidiary of WestBank. The bank started corporate business in Russia several years ago and was ranked among the top 30 banks in the nation. When the bank decided to develop consumer business products, it formed a team of foreign and local specialists. The start-up team had to create the ...