Three former Citizens Bank employees are accused of stealing money from customer accounts by making unauthorized withdrawals, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said Thursday. One of the three bank branches involved was in Somerville.
The scheme investigated from September to November in 2022 was simple, investigators said: A bank teller would make an unauthorized withdrawal and pay it out to associates at the counter. The suspects facilitated the transactions by entering the recipients as “known customers” in a log, even though the people at the counter were not the account holders, investigators said.
“They used their positions of trust to invade accounts and allegedly used their coconspirators to successfully take substantial sums from the bank,” Ryan said of the suspects. “The investigators at Citizen’s Bank identified the suspicious transactions and brought them to our attention, which has enabled us to seek charges to hold these defendants accountable.”
The accused are Yeimaly Moscat, 23, a Boston resident who worked in Somerville; Yojairis Suazo, 21, a Boston resident who worked in Dorchester; and Angelica Morales, 31, a Mattapan resident who worked in Milton.
Somerville has three Citizens branches: In Davis and Union squares and on Winter Hill.
Moscat and Suazo began the scheme, investigators said, with 12 unauthorized withdrawals totaling $40,900 from victims’ bank accounts in Somerville and 15 unauthorized withdrawals totaling $30,850 in Dorchester.
A year later, from November to December, Morales was working as a teller at a Citizens branch in Milton when she was allegedly recruited to carry out the scheme and made five unauthorized withdrawals totaling $20,000, investigators said.
Moscat and Suazo were arraigned Thursday in Middlesex Superior Court. Bail was set at $1,000 for Moscat, and she was ordered to stay away from all Citizens Bank locations, while Suazo was released on her own recognizance with the same order to stay away from the banks.
Morales will be summonsed for arraignment Dec. 12.
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