An HSBC bank clerk accused of stealing around £120,000 has been found hanging with her husband near to their home in Neasden, in what appears to be a joint suicide pact. The former HSBC bank clerk, who is charged with stealing over £100,000 from two vulnerable elderly customers, fled Southwark Crown Court moments before her sentencing. Dhanji had pleaded guilty to the crimes, claiming that a man had threatened her with violence unless she gave him regular cash payments. She is thought to have “panicked” at the thought of the potential 6 year jail sentencing that awaited her and slipped away with her husband the judgement could be read.
Suspicions were aroused when Dhanji refused to allow the victim’s family access to statements and account details. In a subsequent investigation carried out by the bank, she was found to have stolen money from a second victim in their 80s.
According to the sources, Dhanji ingratiated herself to her victims, to the point of receiving flowers and chocolates from one of the pensioners. She said she initially targeted these accounts because she thought that they would not be properly checked.
Dhanji appears to have channelled £80,000 of the stolen funds into a deposit for a house in Watford. The investigation found she rented this property to a member of her family whilst continuing to live with her husband at her parent's house.
HSBC has now reimbursed the accounts of both customers, which amounted to £118,000.
Police have said that they are not treating the couples’ deaths as suspicious.
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Dhanji began siphoned off over £60,000 from one elderly customer’s account between 2005 and 2008, after discovering that they were moving to France to be cared for by their family.
Although the victim subsequently died in France in February 2008, her family did not ask the bank to suspend the account until ten moths later, during which time Dhanji continued to make withdrawals from the victim’s savings.
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