A female ex-bank employee in Japan, Yukari Yamazaki, has been sentenced to jail for repeatedly stealing gold bars and cash worth about $2.6 million.
Yamazaki, during her arraignment at a court in Tokyo, was sentenced to nine years in prison after the judge, Hironobu Ono, found him culpable of committing the crime while being a worker at Mitsubishi UFJ.
The prosecution told the court sitting that the convict had a gambling addiction and began stealing the company properties and funds which she used in currency trading and horse betting.
It added that Yamazaki, between 2023 and 2024, abused his position in the company and knowledge in the security system to steal gold bars worth more than $30 million alongside 60 million Yen from the financial institution’s deposit boxes.
Justice Ono understood the lawbreaker to be a first time offender and that he has vowed to undergo treatment for her gambling addiction but ruled the offence as too heinous, adding that the sentencing was unavoidable.
”The circumstances surrounding her crime are so heinous that they have rarely been seen before,” the judge said during the proceedings on Monday before the court verdict.
