Former bank analyst Yue Cao received 10 years in federal prison and five years of supervised release after a jury convicted him on 15 counts. Prosecutors said he secretly enrolled elderly customers in online banking and moved about $2 million without authorization.
Prosecutors said Cao used an offshore service to create email addresses in the names of more than 100 customers who had not enrolled in online banking, then signed them up without permission. They said he used customers’ identities to open bank and brokerage accounts, transfer funds from legitimate accounts and trade options. The jury convicted him of 10 bank-fraud counts, four aggravated-identity-theft counts and one money-laundering count.
The investigation began after a second bank detected an unauthorized $50,000 transfer in April 2023 from a customer at the Cleveland institution into Cao’s checking account. Two counts tied to a separate $100,000 transfer were dismissed without prejudice after the customer told the FBI he had opened the account and authorized the transfer. A jury convicted Cao on all 15 remaining counts after a five-day trial in February 2026. His appeal docket opened Sept. 21, four days after his sentence, but does not identify the issues he intends to raise.
