A Chinese computer hacker living in Singapore has moved S$62,000 from 21 online bank accounts into his own, withdrawn the cash and then skipped town, a bank official said this morning.
Singapore's DBS Bank discovered last week that a hacker had siphoned off amounts ranging from S$200 to S$4,999 after a customer raised the alarm. Online fund transfers at Southeast Asia's largest bank are usually capped at S$5,000 per day.
A DBS spokeswoman said a Chinese national shifted the S$62,000 into his own account on June 19 in about an hour.
"He went to one of our branches and withdrew the money," she said. "After withdrawing, he went off, he left the country."
The spokeswoman said police believe the culprit crossed the bridge that links Singapore to Malaysia. Police were not immediately available to comment on the case.
DBS, the banking unit of DBS Group Holdings, insists its security system has not been compromised.
"Our system was not hacked but it was hacked at the customers' PC (personal computer)," the spokeswoman said. "He managed to gather the (account) information illegally."
DBS has some three million customers and about 370,000 online accounts.