Ex-MUFG Bank Employee Gets 9 Yrs for Safe Deposit Box Thefts

Tokyo, Oct. 6 (Jiji Press)–Tokyo District Court on Monday sentenced a former MUFG Bank employee to nine years in prison for stealing cash and gold from customers’ safe deposit boxes. Prosecutors had sought a 12-year sentence for 47-year-old Yukari Yamazaki, saying that she had abused her position allowing her to manage spare keys for MUFG Bank branches’ safe deposit boxes and repeatedly engaged in thefts to cover hefty debts mainly incurred in foreign exchange margin trading since 2020. The prosecutors had said that her acts were cunning and habitual, calling them unprecedented acts of crime that caused huge damage. The defense had asked for a five-year prison sentence, saying that Yamazaki was emotionally unstable at the time. Yamazaki admitted that she had stolen money and goods worth a total of 1.7 billion to 1.8 billion yen from about 100 people. She apologized for her actions in her final statement. The indictment accused Yamazaki of stealing 29 gold ingots worth about 333 million yen, 61 million yen in cash and other goods from six customers’ safe deposit boxes between March 2023 and October 2024 while working at the bank’s Nerima and Tamagawa branches in Tokyo. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]