City police have arrested five men employed in a leading construction firm on charges of embezzling Rs. 2.16 crore since 2010. They had received the money through cheques and cash from investors, which they deposited in their personal accounts.
The incident came to light during a recent audit in the 72-year-old company. The management was puzzled when some of the deposits made by their investors were not credited in their company’s bank accounts. After information that some of their own staff members were involved in a possible fraud, they approached Central Crime Branch with a complaint to investigate.
“Staff in both the sales and accounts department were hand in glove and deposits made through cheque or cash by investors were not deposited with the company,” said Abraham Cruz, Inspector investigating the case.
The staff had siphoned off small amounts initially before swindling in lakhs more recently.
Following an investigation, the CCB police team arrested Senthil Kumar (35), vice-president, sales, who had been working in the company since 2000 and four others — M. Jayaprakash (37), R. Venkatesan (30), A. Raghu (36) and M. Thiagarajan (37) under various sections of Indian Penal Code for cheating and criminal breach of trust. Police suspect the role of 12 other staff of the same company. They also suspect one of them to have faked the signature of one of the investors and transferred a property in the name of his wife. Investigations are on.
