Page 179 - A Banker Down the Rabbit Hole

shops in this plaza were being run by Persons of Indian Origin. I had not
heard of any such firm though we had by then visited all major valued
customers of the branch as suggested by the outgoing Expatriate
Managers.

I asked her if she had enquired from the firm from where they got such
cheques. She felt annoyed as if I was asking an un-necessary question.
She was already uncomfortable with our never ending queries in so many
matters because we were new to many procedures and practices at this
foreign branch. She told me that I should not worry as they had submitted
such large number of cheques on three occasions in past also with a few
months interval. All cheques had been paid and bank had credited the
amounts to their account.

I asked her if she knew what the financial worth or size of their business
was. She informed that they were not so big and that meant they were
a small to medium size business. It was a shocking revelation. A single
cheque for USD 350,000 being collected for this customer though it was
issued by US company originally in name of some third party doubled
my suspicion. Normally such large amount cheques are crossed with a
notation "Account Payee only" written between two parallel lines and
credited for the account of the payee only. Such cheques are not
endorsed to a third party for credit to the account other than that of the
payee mentioned on the cheque as was done in case of this cheque.

I was not comfortable with such a situation involving a small means Hong
Kong customer getting a large number of foreign currency cheques issued
overseas in names of third parties and depositing in their account. I
suspected that our customer might be an unsuspecting party in some
fraud by some other party who may not be the true owner of those
cheques.

I explained to her about the legal responsibility of the bank to make good
the loss to the true owners of the cheques if someone else receives the

176 | A Banker down the Rabbit Hole