NY indicts trader in bank computer-tampering case 02/09/00

NEW YORK, Feb 9 (Reuters) - A disgruntled computer specialist and trader at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell was indicted on Wednesday on charges of tampering with the German bank's computer system in an attempt to cause millions of dollars in losses.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said Tony Xiaotong Yu, 36, planted a "time bomb" in a computer program that cost DMG, a unit of Deutsche Bank , $50,000 and months to fix.

"The time bomb was designed to cause Deutsche Bank to lose millions of dollars before the traders realized that anything was amiss," Morgenthau said.

Yu, who holds a doctorate degree in computer programming from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was hired in 1996 to build a bond pricing model.

Instead, prosecutors said, he programmed a glitch that was intended to disrupt the system in August 2000, which could have caused the bank to lose millions of dollars in U.S. government bonds.

Yu, a Chinese national who has lived in the United States for 10 years, was fired in March 1998 after an investigation by the Deutsche Bank, which filed a "Suspicious Activity Report" with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Morgenthau said the bank had tapes of Yu speaking in Mandarin, calling himself "vicious" and "devious." Yu also said he was smarter than other bank employees and that he had not been treated fairly.

Yu was charged with computer tampering and attempted grand larceny and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. He was released on $50,000 bail.

REUTERS

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