TWO negligent bankers in north China's Hebei Province, who didn't mind the store or check the bank balance, have been detained for alleged malfeasance in connection with the country's biggest bank theft. Two tons of money, around 51 million yuan (US$6.8 million), were stolen from the vault.

The actual thieves were sentenced to death for the thefts that took place over a period of time this spring. Other bank officials were fired.

Zhang Xizhong, vice director of the Handan city branch of the Agricultural Bank of China, and An Changhai, the deputy of the branch's cash management center, are under investigation, the Xinhua news agency reported today.

Local prosecutors found that Zhang, who was once in charge of the bank's treasury, didn't mind the store during his tenure. He never kept routine records of the money in the vault. From December 2004 to the end of 2006 there were no checks on the money in hand.

An, vice chief of the treasury, who was supposed to check the monthly stock of money, seldom fulfilled his duties. Even when 18 million yuan were stolen on April 14 and the bank's alarm system rang twice, An reportedly took no measures.

On March 5, Handan's banking regulator had warned the bank to strengthen its internal controls and security and asked for a report within 40 days. However, Zhang apparently did nothing during the period: during that time two of the bank's former employees took away 51 million yuan.

Two of the bank's former vault managers – Ren Xiaofeng, 34, and Ma Xiangjing, 37, – stole the money from March 16 to April 14. Both of them were sentenced to death on September 19.

Ren stole 200,000 yuan from the vault and spent it on lottery tickets in October. After he won, Ren replaced the money. In March, Ren conspired with Ma to steal more money, according to prosecutors.

The duo usually disabled the monitoring system by cutting off the power supply during the series of thefts. However, their continual thieving did trigger alarms to the police but the local security company in charge of safeguarding the vault didn't take them seriously, police said.

During the theft on April 14, the system automatically sent an alarm to the police through the 110 hotline. The police informed the security company but Ren was able to put security staff off with an excuse.

From March 16 to April 13 Ren and Ma took 32.96 million yuan in bank notes from the vault. Ren bought 31.25 million yuan in lottery tickets but this time he didn't win.

On April 14, the two snatched another six boxes of cash worth 18 million yuan and used the money to buy lottery tickets worth another 14 million yuan. No luck.

In late April the Agricultural Bank of China announced the dismissal of a number of senior officials and employees as a result of the thefts.

The bank demanded the resignation of Qu Jianyao, president of the bank's Hebei Province branch. Deng Zhenguo, a vice president of the branch in charge of accounting, and Xu Yuesheng, in charge of branch security, were fired.