Bank safety deposit box error case dismissed

In what can only be described as a very odd case, a magistrate has cleared a married couple who were charged with defrauding a bank out of €40,000 after he heard how the bank had assigned a safety deposit box, which they had been using for over ten years, to another client.

Maria and Victor Xuereb had been charged with fraud after a mistake by a BOV employee resulted in their safety deposit box also being assigned to Anthony and Mary Rose Mangion, resulting in the bank refunding the €40,000 originally deposited, to the Xuereb family.

The Mangions had testified how one day, whilst checking the safety deposit box which they had rented in the San Gwann branch of Bank of Valletta, they found a stack of US Dollars of unknown origin inside, together with their money.

Investigations carried out by the bank established that the money belonged to the Xuereb family who had already been refunded by the bank, after they had reported the money to have been stolen from their safety deposit box.

The police, believing that the money belonged to the Mangions, charged Xuereb with attempting to capitalise on the bank’s mistake.

The court however expressed its disbelief at the fact that they police had failed to investigate the Mangion couple, only charging the Xuerebs, describing it as “an obscene and unforgivable error”. It noted that the employee responsible had been disciplined.

Also very worrying, said the court, was the fact that in spite of the Xuereb couple being given the benefit of the doubt and refunded by the bank, the prosecution chose not to believe their version of events, prosecuting them instead.

Neither the original complaint nor the origins of the investigation were ever explained to the court, it said, adding that the fact that the investigation began almost a year after the incident was also inexplicable.

The court said that there was a remote possibility that it could have been a complicated ruse set up by the Mangion family, but it also noted that the Xuereb couple had been renting the box for over ten years without incident.

The magistrate noted that there were multiple possible scenarios which could not be proved to the level required by law.

“One cannot clearly say whether it was the accused who set up the mise en scene, the Mangions or a bank employee. Maybe the bank made further mistakes and God only knows what was done with the money.”