A BANK worker is facing prison after being convicted of taking part in a bank scam.

An African prince was one of the people whose bank details were passed onto a gang which plundered their accounts.

At Southwark Crown Court last week, Shana Campbell, aged 23, who worked at a Halifax branch in Bexleyheath, was found guilty on a charge of conspiracy to defraud.

Three of her co-defendants were cleared.

The court heard Campbell, of Finland Road, Brockley, and a number of unidentified people hacked into the accounts of dozens of rich clients.

Money was then siphoned out of the accounts into new ones set up by the gang.

Campbell's activities netted the gang nearly £790,000.

She claimed she had been frightened into taking part in the fraud but in court her role was described as "dishonest, systematic and sustained".

By October 2005, the Halifax had received complaints from 22 customers about unauthorised changes of addresses on accounts which had been fraudulently opened.

Investigations then showed Campbell had been making "wholly unnecessary" checks on accounts after dealing with customers.

The gang even took £114,000 from a dead woman's account and blew the money on luxury goods.

A second bank employee, Emmanuel Imbra, aged 21, from Reading, who worked for HSBC, was cleared of conspiracy to defraud.

Customers from Barclays were also caught up in the fraud.

Details of eight of the plundered accounts were found at the Lambeth home of Oluwasegun Adekunle.

Adekunle, aged 27, who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, had been wearing an £18,500 Rolex at the time of the police raid.

An £87,000 Bentley Continental, bought with stolen money, was found in his underground car park.

Designer watches worth nearly £60,000 were found at addresses connected with the conspiracy, as well as false passports and banking documents.

Dominic Almond, aged 39, from Slough, and Ayodeyi Osibogun, aged 30, from Brixton, were cleared of taking part in the scam.

Neil Kynoch, aged 38, from Windsor, admitted one charge of conspiracy to launder money.

He allowed accounts for his company Berkshire Motor World to be used to launder stolen cash.

The defendants who were found guilty will be sentenced at a later date.