JPMorgan Chase & Co said it has sued a former private banking executive arrested last year in Argentina on criminal charges, accusing him of stealing $2.8 million from a customer's account.

In a civil lawsuit filed on Monday in Manhattan federal court, the second-largest U.S. bank said Hernan Arbizu arranged for the funds to be wired to a customer account at his prior employer UBS AG , an account from which it said he had also stolen funds.

Arbizu committed this theft by lying to JPMorgan employees, falsifying documents, and forging the JPMorgan customer's signature on wire transfer authorizations, in order to mislead JPMorgan to believe that the JPMorgan customer had directed these transfers, the complaint said.

JPMorgan said it has fully reimbursed its customer. It said it fired Arbizu on May 30, 2008.

The defendant did not immediately return a request for comment. A lawyer for Arbizu could not immediately be located. A UBS spokesman had no immediate comment, saying the lawsuit had not been reviewed.

Arbizu was arrested in July 2008, and charged by U.S. prosecutors in a 15-count indictment unsealed that month with embezzling about $5.4 million from bank customers.

He remains in Argentina, pending extradition, JPMorgan said.

The case is JPMorgan Chase Bank NA v. Arbizu, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 09-10496.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; editing by Gunna Dickson)

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