A federal jury in Cleveland has convicted a Chinese national who used his position as a bank employee in a yearlong scheme to steal money from elderly customers, according to federal prosecutors.

Cao Yue, 36, of Winfield, Illinois, was found guilty on 10 counts of bank fraud, four counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of money laundering, following a five-day trial before U.S. District Judge J. Philip Calabrese, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio announced on Feb. 10.

Prosecutors said Cao stole approximately $2 million from bank accounts belonging to victims aged 90 to 103 in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Washington, and Ohio.

According to the indictment, Cao worked as a quantitative modeling analyst remotely at a “federally insured financial institution based in or around Cleveland” from June 2015 to June 2022. Due to his position, he had access to “substantial customer and client information.”

Prosecutors said Cao was hired to protect customers from fraud but instead carried out a fraud scheme from May 2022 to April 2023.

Cao targeted bank customers who were not enrolled in the institution’s online services and secretly created email accounts in their names via an offshore service. Using those fraudulent email addresses, he registered the unsuspecting customers for online banking without their knowledge or consent, according to prosecutors.

Cao then directed the victims’ bank statements and account notifications to the fraudulent email addresses he had created, according to prosecutors. With access to their online banking accounts, he transferred the victims’ funds to his own bank and credit card accounts.

For example, in May 2022, Cao transferred about $142,000 from an account belonging to an individual identified only as “Victim 2” into a fraudulent account at “Bank 3” that he had opened in the victim’s name, according to the indictment.

He also used the victims’ identities to open accounts in their names at other banks without their knowledge, funneling their money into those accounts, prosecutors said. Some were brokerage accounts in which he traded options using the funds. In some instances, he arranged transactions between the unauthorized accounts and his own brokerage account.

One of the victims, identified only as “Victim 4,” passed away in March 2020, according to the indictment.

According to a trial brief filed by prosecutors in January, Cao was hired at Charles Schwab after leaving his position at Key Bank. At his new job, Cao “worked on building models for internal systems designed to predict and track fraud,” according to the brief.

Key Bank began conducting an internal investigation on Cao after being alerted to unauthorized activities by Charles Schwab, according to the brief. The FBI launched its own investigation after receiving a complaint from the Cleveland-based bank.

Cao was fired from Charles Schwab in April 2023, according to the brief.

The U.S. attorney’s office said that Cao faces a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison and could receive a maximum term of up to 30 years. The sentencing has not yet been scheduled.

Cao’s attorney, Vadim A. Glozman, told The Epoch Times in an email that the defense intends to challenge the verdict.

“We are disappointed in the jury’s verdict and plan on appealing the conviction,” Glozman said.