A former Massachusetts bank employee pleaded guilty to stealing over $180,000 from the financial institution, federal officials announced Thursday, exploiting a rare vulnerability in the airtight world of bank security.
Derek Aut – a former sandwich maker at a beloved sub shop in Revere – pleaded guilty in federal court to embezzling funds while working as a teller at a bank in Boston, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. His theft involved forging bank customers’ signatures on withdrawal slips and moving money between accounts to cover his tracks, according to prosecutors.
The victims were an executive who lived in Asia and a 99-year-old Bostonian, according to court filings. The nearly-century-old woman was the one who first reported Aut’s theft. Aut spent most of the cash gambling at the harbor casino, the FBI said.
“Banks are entrusted to safeguard their customers’ hard-earned savings, and bank tellers hold a unique position of trust in handling those funds,” Leah B. Foley, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, told USA TODAY. “This defendant exploited that trust, deliberately targeting victims he believed wouldn’t notice the missing money and manipulating their accounts to cover his tracks. Crimes like this erode public confidence and underscore the need for vigilance.”
The theft comes as stealing money from banks becomes increasingly difficult. Bank robbery has become such a risky, low-yield crime that the FBI is recording fewer holdups than ever before. And internal bank protections have made thefts by employees exceedingly rare, according to experts.
But – while today’s John Dillinger may have moved on to other forms of crime – Aut’s theft shows some vulnerabilities remain within financial institutions that can be exploited for a substantial payday.
“It’s remarkable really, it’s got to say something about internal controls at the financial institution,” Robert McCrie, an expert in bank theft and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told USA TODAY. “This case is going to get the attention of not only a lot of bankers but people who deal with liquid assets . . . it’s going to force them to rethink the internal controls they have.”
McCrie noted how long Aut operated his scheme – from September 2023 to April 2024, according to court filings – at the Boston TD Bank branch undetected. “It gives one pause how such a crime was able to occur over such a long period of time,” he said. “Usually the dishonest teller is discovered quickly and terminated.”
When asked to comment, a TD Bank spokesperson said: “The employee was terminated on April 8, 2024, based on our findings and prior to his arrest. We notified law enforcement and cooperated fully with their investigation.”
Aut pleaded guilty to charges of embezzlement by a bank employee and aggravated identity theft. The 28-year-old faces up to 30 years in federal prison. U.S. Senior District Court Judge William G. Young scheduled sentencing for June 16, 2025.
An attorney for Aut declined to comment. The FBI said Aut became a frequent gambler when he began stealing money, spending around $100,000 at the Encore Boston Harbor Casino.
Stick-up at the cellphone store: USA’s new heists go after iPhones and not bank vaults.
How he took the money
Aut’s stint at the Boston TD Bank branch began in June 2022, according to his LinkedIn. It was the latest stop in a string of jobs, where he did everything from making sandwiches at Dimino’s Subs in Revere to working as a dispatcher at a logistics company.
He began stealing from bank customers a little over a year later in September 2023 when he began making frequent trips to the Encore Boston Harbor Casino, according to the FBI. Aut made 31 trips to the Encore Boston Harbor Casino over the course of the seven-month scheme. He spent over $100,000 in cash to play and lost some $32,000, according to the FBI.
Aut stole from just two bank customers but took over $180,000 from them altogether, court filings show.
The first victim – a 52-year-old pharmaceutical executive living in Singapore – maintained multiple accounts at the bank branch, including a trust for her children and a Certificate of Deposit account she opened at Aut’s recommendation.
Bank records show Aut made 46 withdrawals from her account totaling $156,000, which also resulted in nearly $17,000 in penalties for withdrawing from restricted accounts. Aut completed the withdrawals by forging her signature, according to a federal indictment.
The second victim was a 99-year-old Bostonian. Aut stole nearly $11,000 from her account over four withdrawals, according to court filings.
He replaced nearly $6,000 with money from the executive’s account after the nearly-century-old woman reported at the TD Bank branch on Winter Place near Boston Common, court filings say.
Aut told investigators that he used money from her account to cover a debt he had to pay “because his family was being threatened”
Promises of gold mines: Ex-NFL player gets prison for running Ponzi scheme
What was the bank’s fatal flaw?
The amount of cash Aut managed to steal is a rarity nowadays.
“It’s a stunning amount,” said McCrie, a professor of security management. “Half of that would be a stunning amount.”
Stealing from banks has become a very difficult crime to commit in recent decades as laws like the Bank Protection Act of 1968 have mandated safety measures at institutions nationwide.
Bank robberies have fallen to record lows since then and the average payout has dropped to about just $4,000, according to FBI statistics. Federal agents registered 1,263 bank robberies in 2023. That’s an 80% decrease from 2003 when there were 7,465 robberies.
Financial institutions also have measures to keep employees from stealing.
Many banks vet candidates with drug tests and background checks to ensure they don’t have criminal records, according to McCrie. And high-resolution cameras inside banks allow authorities to see who made a withdrawal.
But a key slip-up in the Boston case was that Aut was able to make withdrawals without another bank employee verifying the deposit slips, according to McCrie.
“It’s really one of the most dangerous things an organization can do— have someone approve and then pay an amount without a third party looking at a transaction,” McCrie said. “It’s one of the fundamental ways to prevent losses from internal sources.”
More: Charlatan borrowed priceless violins. But he was just stringing owners along.
Michael Loria is a national reporter on the USA TODAY breaking news desk. Contact him at mloria@usatoday.com, @mchael_mchael or on Signal at (202) 290-4585.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Boston bank teller stole $180K. How can that happen today?
