A Tokyo court has sentenced a former MUFG Bank employee to nine years in prison for repeatedly stealing gold bars and cash from customers' safety deposit boxes to pay her gambling and currency trading debts.

On Oct. 6, the Tokyo District Court handed down a nine-year prison sentence to Yukari Yamazaki (formerly known as Yukari Imamura), 47, a former deputy branch manager of MUFG Bank Ltd.

She was charged with stealing gold bars and cash from safety deposit boxes at her branches.

Between March 2023 and October 2024, Yamazaki stole 29 gold bars worth approximately 330 million yen ($2.2 million), around 60 million yen in cash, and 50 travel vouchers worth 250,000 yen total.

She admitted to all the charges.

DEBT AND DESPERATION

In the trial, prosecutors revealed that Yamazaki began stealing around 2020, when she was assigned to manage customers' safety deposit boxes.

Facing mounting debts from foreign exchange margin trading (FX) and horse racing betting, she resorted to theft to cover her losses.

Including unindicted cases, prosecutors estimated the total damages amounted to approximately 1.4 billion yen, with victims numbering up to 70.

“This is an unprecedented crime,” prosecutors said at her trial. “An employee of one of Japan’s leading banks stole entrusted cash and gold, causing massive damage.”

They noted that Yamazaki delayed detection by transferring stolen items from one box to another to mask the thefts.

“She betrayed customer trust in an extremely malicious way,” prosecutors argued, calling for a 12-year sentence.

On the other hand, the defense claimed that stress from her managerial duties contributed to the crime.

They argued that Yamazaki had admitted guilt, promised to quit FX and horse racing, and deserved a five-year sentence.

However, the court found her actions exceptionally egregious. Even after resuming FX trading and increasing her debt, she did not consult her family and continued stealing from multiple customers.

Yamazaki's criminal conduct was "extraordinarily bad," the court stated in the ruling.

DISCOVERY AND FALLOUT

The thefts came to light in October 2024 when a customer reported cash missing from a safety deposit box.

MUFG Bank dismissed Yamazaki in November and publicly disclosed the incident.

Following this case, similar thefts by bank employees at other institutions were uncovered.

In response, the Financial Services Agency revised its supervisory guidelines in May, urging banks to prohibit stashing cash in safety deposit boxes.

The Japanese Bankers Association also revised its template guidelines in June, which banks use when establishing regulations for safety deposit box services, specifying that cash “cannot be stored.”

CAREER AND CRIMINAL PATH

According to courtroom testimony, Yamazaki joined the bank in April 1999 as a general staff member handling customer service.

Her turning point came when she saw her husband profit from FX trading and decided to try it herself. Unable to replicate his success, she fell into debt and turned to wagering on horse racing, worsening her financial predicament. 

By 2013, her debts had reached 12 million yen. She filed for personal rehabilitation, and her husband managed her finances until the debt was repaid in three years. But her spending habits did not change, and she resumed FX trading and horse racing betting around 2017.

Meanwhile, her career prospered. She was promoted to managerial status in April 2020 and took charge of safety deposit box operations—eventually leading to the thefts.

Her primary modus operandi was as follows:

Yamazaki entered the vault after 3 p.m. when no entry logs were recorded. Using master keys and spare keys, she randomly opened boxes and pilfered valuables.

She photographed the stolen items and tracked them using spreadsheets. To avoid detection, she moved stolen goods between boxes and used bank cash to fill the gaps. She monitored colleagues’ schedules and customer visit histories to avoid detection.

Even after transferring to another branch as deputy manager, she continued stealing until the crime was discovered in October 2024.

When informed by her former branch that money was missing, she confessed—producing a memo detailing the stolen amounts and the keys used.

In her testimony in August, Yamazaki tearfully said, “I’ve caused distrust to the entire financial industry and tarnished the name of MUFG Bank, where I worked for 25 years.”

She pleaded, “Please don’t think badly of MUFG Bank because of me alone.”