Woman withdrew €57k from ATM in one day

Ulster Bank has issued criminal proceedings against people who failed to pay back money withdrawn fraudulently while the bank was experiencing a software failure, a court has heard.

The details of the other investigations emerged during the sentencing of a care worker who stole over €57,000 from various ATMs across Dublin.

Titilayo Kilanko, aged 38, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 10 counts of theft from Ulster Bank on June 22, 2012. She told gardaí she used the money to pay for her father’s kidney transplant in Nigeria.

Kilanko admitted stealing a total of €57,708 by making 115 fraudulent withdrawals from ATMs in Dun Laoghaire; Lower Kilmacud Rd, Stillorgan; Main St, Blackrock; and at the Beacon Centre in Sandyford.

Judge Martin Nolan adjourned the case for sentencing to next month to allow time for the defence to obtain medical records from Nigeria.

Kilanko, a mother of two, with an address at of Carrigmore Lawn, Citywest, Dublin 24, was arrested a month after the thefts when an Ulster Bank official alerted gardaí to fraudulent transactions on her account. Detective Garda Keith Gorman told Caroline Cummings, prosecuting, that the withdrawals had all been carried out between midday and 9.30pm.

Det Garda Gorman said it had been “well-publicised” by the bank that there was a software issue on the day, although it was not specified that money could be withdrawn even when there was none in an account.

“News travelled very fast,” he said, adding that Ulster Bank had since issued criminal prosecutions for several people who made fraudulent withdrawals on the day and failed to pay back the money.

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