Raquel Godinho swindled clients to tune of €3 million
The shocking story of a bank employee who swindled clients out of €3 million, before driving herself (and members of her immediate family) over a cliff, continues to reverberate around the seaside town of Ericeira. The reason: BCP Millennium is reportedly refusing to fully indemnify clients because of signatures that moved large quantities of money (signatures forged by their own employee).
The signatures look genuine.
As one of the ‘swindled’ has told tabloid Correio da Manhã: “The replica is almost perfect”.
This particular client lost €125,000 from her account. BCP Millennium has paid her only €29,500 because bank bosses could not find any form of signed justification for the withdrawals. But, as to the rest of the money lost (€95,500) “my signature attests to the withdrawals. Only the signature is not mine. It was falsified by Raquel!” the client tells CM.
This is just one of several people who cannot get their money back, writes the paper, and who are “increasingly discontent with the bank hierarchy who have shown themselves ‘inflexible’ and ‘without the will to resolve a serious problem caused by an employee’”.
The “swindled by Raquel”, as the group of bank clients have become known, were presented with the ‘evidence’ of their signatures on various documents justifying withdrawals from their accounts, at a meeting in Venda do Pinheiro, Mafra, last week, says CM.
The way one of the ‘swindled’ sees the situation is that “the bank wants to escape paying, and that is not right”.
Lawyers now, for the clients, will be demanding documents in order to take the matter further. But the undeniable truth here is that BCP Millennium knew of Raquel Godinho’s crimes: this was the reason behind the suicide bid which succeeded in killing both herself and her mother, but from which her two teenage sons managed, miraculously, to dodge.
CM has approached BCP Millennium which responded: “BCP has nothing to comment on the specific situation referred to, but stresses that complaints submitted to the bank are always analysed rigorously and, if it is concluded that the customer is right, the bank takes the appropriate measures to ensure that customers are not harmed in any way”.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
