RBS banking consultant Aditya Rajiv was last week fined £4,200 for selling the bank account numbers and sort codes of two customers on the underground “dark web”.

Rajiv, of 163 Hardgate, Aberdeen, admitted selling the personal information.

But he was cleared of devising a scheme to defraud three pensioners of £2,000 and of stealing £5,500 from client Douglas Davidson by transferring money to a PayPal account.

When police searched Rajiv’s home, they found personal banking information for a number of clients, including all four complainers.

Police also discovered he had bank account numbers and sort codes saved in his computer.

Steven Beveridge, a former fraud investigator, told Aberdeen Sheriff Court that Rajiv had accessed the accounts of the four people an “excessive” amount of times in the days leading up to the cash being withdrawn.

Rajiv’s solicitor successfully argued that argued that Mr Beveridge’s evidence was opinion and not expert analysis, as he had by his own admission never worked in the retail banking sector.

Sheriff Edward Savage agreed to disregard the evidence and ruled that the thefts had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.