Faithful Stealing

Faithful managed to siphon the money from his small-town branch of the Commonwealth Bank in Western Australia over five years without detection until he turned himself in during a fit of suicidal depression. He had wagered up to 500,000 dollars a week and lost a total of 19 million dollars.

Handing down his sentence, West Australian judge Kevin Hammond said it was "curious" the Commonwealth Bank never noticed discrepancies in the accounts of Faithful's branch at Karratha, on the state's sparsely populated north coast.

The judge also asked why IASBet.com, Faithfull's online bookmaker, continued to accept his bets even though it knew what he did for a living.

The court was told during the trial that Faithfull was IASBet.com's largest customer, betting ten times more than others, and the bookmaker encouraged his wagers by offering him tickets to the races and sending bottles of expensive wine to his bank.

IASBet.com has denied any wrongdoing, saying over the weekend that it had been "in compliance of its legal and corporate responsibilities".

The Commonwealth bank has refused to comment on the case, except to say the losses did not affect any customers, but is expected to try to recoup some of the money from IASBet.com.

Faithfull gave himself up in August, leaving a note at his branch telling staff he was going to hang himself. "I wasn't thinking rationally and the dollar figure was way out of control," he said in a newspaper interview last week. "I was never going to get that back."