KEY POINTS:
A "highly trusted" head teller at ASB used fake identities to set up bank accounts and regularly pocketed $100 notes, and got away with it for months, even after he had been sacked.
It was a very simple scheme.
But despite using secret video cameras and a specialist
bank investigator, ASB did not know exactly how much Joe "Alfonso" Fuiava stole.
Fuiava, a 25-year-old Henderson father of two, faces up to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of theft, of using ASB's computer systems to set up the accounts and of using a document (a Cashflow card) dishonestly.
He appeared in the Auckland District Court on Wednesday and was remanded on bail for sentencing on August 1.
ASB spokeswoman Debbie Bell said the bank had no comment.
"The bank's reply is that Joe doesn't work for us any more, and we don't comment on matters such as this... That's our policy, as far as these things go."
But records show ASB told police that between December and February, the foreign exchange bureau at the Queen St branch, where Fuiava had been spending most of his time, was short A$100, 400 Pounds and 600 Euros.
Police told the court that Fuiava denied any knowledge of the missing Australian currency but admitted taking the pounds and euros on up to eight separate occasions, in denominations of 100 each time.
Police said Fuiava told them he had converted the currency to New Zealand dollars and spent it on his family.
Fuiava was sacked for stealing on February 16.
But his bosses didn't know that in his last week on the job, Fuiava had set up two fake accounts - from which he stole hundreds of dollars in the three weeks after he had been fired, according to the police summary of facts.
Fuiava told the Herald on Sunday last week that he had no comment but said the case would have devastating effects on his wife, toddler, newborn baby and mother, who was ill.
Fuiava's lawyer Cam Robertson also declined to comment, saying those were his instructions.
But Fuiava admitted to police that he had used his colleagues' computers while they were at lunch to set up the accounts under fake addresses, using the false names Mr Habib Ali and Ms Alex Garcia.
The police report said Fuiava had organised Cashflow cards and pin numbers for the accounts and had later transferred $800 from the Garcia account, which had an overdraft, to the Ali account.
He also switched the Ali account to a tertiary plan, so that he could claim a $40 promotional gift.
Fuiava told police and the ASB investigator that he had been desperate and used the money to buy nappies and milk, and to pay family bills.
But records showed the eight transactions, which came to $434.60, included $180 on "concert merchandise", $15 on gourmet food deliveries and $142.50 at bakeries and superettes. There were also two withdrawals of $40 cash, one at midnight on a Saturday, the other on a Thursday lunchtime.
Known as Alfonso to his ASB colleagues, Fuiava spent two years at the Queen St branch of ASB, worked his way up to head teller and switched to the foreign exchange desk in December. Police told the court Fuiava was "a highly trusted member of staff at this branch, where his duties included processing customers' banking transactions, allocating large internal cash transactions to other staff, inserting large amounts of cash into ATMs and handling foreign exchange transactions".
Covert surveillance was used to catch Fuiava pocketing cash.
It was not clear how the fake accounts had been discovered. ASB's investigator Ross Anderson did not return Herald on Sunday calls.
