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CREATIVE |
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Baldev Singh
Malaysia, 2000 |
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| 'My brother's keeper' |
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Heroes are defined by deeds, not appearances. By any definition,
Baldev Singh is a hero. Singh is a tall, turbaned Sikh with
a pleasant smile and a relaxed air. Singh is so relaxed, so
confident and at peace with himself, that it's hard to believe
that such a man would care as much as he did—and fight
as tenaciously as he did—for the life of a colleague he'd
never met.
Singh is the Head of Credit, Consumer Banking, Malaysia. It's
his job to make sure that the electronic infrastructure that
supports all the bank cards, credit cards and ATMs in Malaysia
works effectively. Singh is also a consumer of the financial
products he oversees. He understands his customers' needs and
expectations intimately because he carries and uses the bank
cards and credit cards Standard Chartered Bank promotes in the
region. It is this intimate understanding of card use and customer
need that helped him save his colleague's life.
In late January 2000, Singh was contacted about a series of
suspicious withdrawals from an account at the Jalan Ampang branch
in Kuala Lumpur. The account belonged to a senior officer of
the Bank who had ‘gone missing!'
The senior officer had been adrift for 48 hours. An unidentified
caller had phoned the Bank to say that the senior officer had
been injured in an accident and would not be reporting to work
for a few days. The call had come from Johor Bahru, 350 kilometres
south of Kuala Lumpur. The senior officer's supervisor found
these facts suspicious and disturbing. The senior officer had
been with the Bank for 25 years. He was known to be reliable,
punctual and regular in his habits.
The supervisor contacted the senior officer's immediate family.
They had not seen him or heard from him in two days. They went
to his apartment and found it ransacked. And then it was discovered
that RM3,000 had been withdrawn from his savings account. The
maximum daily withdrawal in Malaysia is RM3,000. This was not
at all typical behaviour. Foul play was suspected.
It was at this point that Baldev Singh was contacted. He was
asked to freeze the senior officer's account and to try and
find the surveillance video from the ATM where the money had
been withdrawn. Singh found himself orchestrating the efforts
of the local police, the Bank's Security Department and Secom
(the company that provides the video surveillance service).
By midnight on the second day of the disappearance, they had
found the video image of the withdrawal. Clearly, the figure
on camera was not the Bank's senior officer.
The senior officer's family then contacted Singh and asked that
the freeze on the account be lifted. They were concerned that
the kidnappers would kill the senior officer once the ATM card
proved useless. As long as they could withdraw money from the
account, the senior officer's life had value. If they were correct,
and the kidnappers were going to kill the senior officer once
his money was exhausted, then there was only as much time left
as there was money in his account. At the end of the second
day, RM6,000 had been withdrawn. Approximately RM12,000 remained
before the senior officer would pay with his life. There was
little time to lose.
Singh lifted the freeze on the senior officer's account. They
were concerned, however, that a withdrawal might be made some
time after midnight—when there was no one to monitor the
account. To buy a little time, they decided to shut down the
eight ATMs in the area of the Klang Valley where the most recent
withdrawal had been made.
On that first day of the investigation, Singh left the Bank
for home at 1:15 in the morning. He was back at the Bank, monitoring
the senior officer's account, by 6:45 a.m. Two withdrawals were
made that morning at two different ATM locations within 15 minutes
of each other. The surveillance tapes showed two different men.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to identify them as they were
both wearing baseball caps that concealed their faces from view.
It was clear, however, that neither man bore any resemblance
to the Bank's senior officer.
On the morning of the fourth day, the police assembled a team
of 40 undercover police to conduct a 24-hour surveillance of
the four branches suspected to be the most likely locations
for the next ATM withdrawal. By this time, Singh had set up
an ‘operations room' in a secluded section of the branch
at Jalan Ampang. A direct line connected Singh to the undercover
police monitoring the ATMs. Singh and his crew sat glued to
their computer monitors. They waited. Finally, at 9:30 p.m.,
the kidnappers made their move. In minutes they withdrew another
RM3,000. By the time Singh contacted the police, the kidnappers
had disappeared. For some unfortunate technical reason, there
had been a lapse of 20 minutes between the time of the withdrawal
and the time Singh had contacted the police. If this was going
to work and Singh was going to save his colleague's life, another
strategy would have to be found.
Though dispirited and tired after another 16-hour day, Singh
continued to work on shortening the time-lapse between the insertion
of the bank card and the time the transaction would register
on his surveillance monitor. It was also important to establish
the precise amount of time that passed between the insertion
of the card and the release of funds. While his colleagues monitored
his account, Singh withdrew money at an ATM on the ground floor
of the Jalan Ampang branch. In time, Singh managed to refine
their surveillance methods. The time between the insertion of
the card and the release of funds was 20 seconds. Would that
be enough time to apprehend the kidnappers?
Singh again asked his superiors to close down the ATMs between
midnight and 6 a.m. But pressure was mounting to cancel the
operation. The Chinese New Year was only a few days off. Traditionally,
customers use the ATMs at Chinese New Years to acquire crisp
new notes to give as gifts of ‘lucky money.' Bank customers
were complaining that the ATMs were ‘out of service.' And
the police were beginning to believe that the operation, a huge
commitment of their resources, was not likely to succeed. But
Singh persisted, and the Bank's CEO and the police agreed to
shut down the ATMs for another night and continue the surveillance
for yet another day.
The next day, Singh was at his computer monitor by 6:45 a.m.
Watching and waiting. At 9 a.m., he excused himself for a few
minutes to attend to some of his other work—which was now
piling up at his desk in another part of the branch. At 1:30
p.m., he received a call from a colleague telling him that the
senior officer's account had been accessed yet again. Singh
dropped what he was doing and rushed to the command centre.
The kidnappers had used an ATM at a branch at Petaling Jaya—some
12 kilometres from the Jalan Ampang branch. Unfortunately, this
was not one of the branches the police were watching. This disappointment
was the most serious blow to the operation. Few remained hopeful
of a successful outcome.
But Singh persisted. He and two senior Bank staff met with officers
of the Serious Crimes Division at Police headquarters. Singh
asked that undercover surveillance be extended to cover all
Bank branches within a radius of 90 kilometres. Reluctantly,
the police agreed. But they were fast losing hope. RM15,000
had already been withdrawn from the senior officer's account.
One more day and the account would be empty. Fortunately, Singh
was also able to persuade the Bank to shut down the ATMs for
one more night.
On the morning of the sixth day, Singh arrived at his desk in
the command centre at 6:45 a.m. In spite of the fatigue of so
many hours of frustrating work, Singh felt convinced that they
would be successful. This was going to be the day. At 8:30 a.m.,
he saw activity in the senior officer's account. He shouted,
“Hit, hit!” By reading the transaction code, he was
able to identify the branch and the specific ATM machine. The
withdrawal was taking place at the Klang Valley branch—some
40 kilometres from the command centre at the Jalan Ampang branch.
The police performed impeccably and quickly alerted the undercover
agents watching the Klang Valley branch. Singh was exhilarated
to hear that the undercover police had identified two suspects
and were now following them as they drove toward Kuala Lumpur.
Finally, at 10 a.m., Singh was contacted by the police and told
that the two suspects had been arrested. Police had found in
their possession the senior officer's ATM card, the ATM withdrawal
slip and RM3,000. Case closed? Not quite. At noon, police called
Singh to inform him that the senior officer had been rescued
and was now safely in police custody. He was in shock, but relatively
unharmed by the ordeal. The police had arrested five more suspects
and recovered most of the stolen money. At 2:30 p.m., police
called Singh and told him he could visit the senior officer
at the Petaling Jaya Police Station.
“I left immediately. The senior officer was sitting in
the District Police Chief's office. When he saw me he stood
up and gave me a big hug. It was a warm appreciative embrace,
something I will remember for a long time. About thirty minutes
later, his family arrived. They all wept. Hugs and tears. It
was a beautiful sight. I was very happy and satisfied that I
had played my part in his safe release.” |
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