How the banker's scam took place

Mackenzie created new customer identification numbers

As a business manager at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Donald MacKenzie had the authority to open personal bridging loan accounts.

His scam involved creating new customer identification numbers (CINs) using details of customers, sometimes by omitting just one letter from their name.

A CIN is created for every account opened. One number is given for personal accounts and another for business accounts.

A personal bridging loan falls under the personal category and someone who had only a business account would be given a new personal CIN.

All personal bridging loan applications made by customers of business managers must be submitted to the Business Lending Unit (BLU)

Bank statements

Once Mackenzie had created a new CIN he would open a personal bridging loan account pretending a genuine customer was seeking a loan.

By failing to code the loan as BLU required it would be sent to the customer lending centre (CLC), which deals with mass applications from the public.

Staff at CLC would see this was probably a business loan and refer it back to MacKenzie who would then say it was a mistake on his part.

After the loan was drawn he would then mark the loan BLU on a computer screen as it should have been originally.

This would ensure it was not on the CLC print-out and because the loan had already been drawn it would also fail to appear on the BLU print-out.

An on-screen facility existed to amend the address where bank statements should be sent for the loan.

MacKenzie would change this and mark it "return to branch" which meant the statements were sent to him.