A bank worker who tried to steal £1.2 million using customer details nabbed from his employer's computer system, was caught after police used a scouting handbook to crack his code, a court has heard.
According to press reports, Ansir Khan, who worked for Carter Allen Private Bank in Sheffield, wrote down stolen customer details in a complex code to avoid detection.
He gave the details to accomplices who then rang up the bank pretending to be the customers, transferring money to their own accounts.
Between April 2005 and May 2006, the gang successfully stole £707,000 but another £500,000 did not go through. Of the money stolen, £315,000 was retrieved and refunded to victims.
When police raided Khan's home they found his codes, which substituted letters in customer names for symbols and numbers, on pieces of paper.
Detective constable Chris Stephens, a former district commissioner in the Scouts, used the Scoutmaster's A to Z handbook - originally published in 1958 - to crack the code, before pairing symbols with victim details.
Khan, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal, will be sentenced along with 11 other gang members at Nottingham crown court today.