Woman arrested years after scamming hundreds of thousands of dollars from customers of Seneca bank, police say

by A.J. Davis

SENECA, S.C. — A woman has been arrested years after scamming thousands of dollars from a bank in Seneca, South Carolina, according to the Seneca Police Department.

According to Seneca PD, they received a report about missing money from a bank account held at Bank of America in Seneca.

Seneca PD says the victim reported that he was missing around $30,000 and also reported it to the Customer Service department by phone.

Seneca PD investigators worked with the Bank of America investigators for the next several weeks after the crime and determined that an employee who had been suspended and terminated, stole money from multiple individuals who lived in Oconee County.

According to Seneca PD, the victims would use the Bank of America in Seneca as their primary bank and used Bobbi Cortese as their personal banker.

Seneca PD investigators, along with the United States Secret Service, then spent the next several years conducting further interviews and gave the Bank of America time to complete its internal investigation.

Seneca PD says they discovered Cortese stole nearly $300,000 from four people using her position at the bank.

Some of the victims had money in the bank for life insurance payouts pursuant to the deaths of their spouses and others had a lifetime of earnings that would be used to fund their retirement, according to Seneca PD.

Cortese opened accounts under her victim's name without their knowledge or approval and did what officers call a “shell game” where she used the funds from one victim to replace funds that she had taken from another victim.

Seneca PD says after further investigation, they discovered that Cortese forged several documents and issued those documents to the victims to conceal the theft.

Cortese was committing these acts for around four years while she was employed at the Bank of America, according to Seneca PD.

According to Seneca PD, Cortese was charged with four counts of breach of trust and two counts of forgery.

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Woman arrested years after scamming hundreds of thousands of dollars from customers of Seneca bank, police say