Ex-ICICI staffer dupes Canadian of Rs. 32 lakh

Acquainted with the personal details of a Canadian citizen after a customer service call, the former ICICI staffer had the entire amount of 61,451 Canadian dollars transferred to his friend’s account

An ex-employee of ICICI bank’s international call centre here found himself behind bars on Tuesday for allegedly siphoning off Rs. 32 lakh from a foreigner’s account after stealing the latter’s confidential information.

Accused B. Raghu Kishore Reddy had purchased a piece of land at Shadnagar in neighbouring Mahbubnagar district with the seven lakh rupees thus appropriated, Cyberabad Cyber Crimes ACP D. Pratap Reddy said. He had also paid Rs. 4 lakh from the money to his wife’s employer as she allegedly misappropriated the amount from her office.

Twenty-seven-year-old Reddy, hailing from Visakhapatnam, was working at the bank’s head office at Gachibowli. A few weeks ago, he received a call from Pierre Courtot, a Canadian customer of the bank, who inquired about the 61,451 Canadian dollars in his account which was inactive for nearly two years.

While giving details of the balance in the customer’s account, the accused accessed all the confidential information of the foreigner like his date of birth, email id for communication, residential address etc. As the customer didn’t call up again, Kishore Reddy hatched a plot to dupe him.

First, he changed the email id and telephone number of the customer in the bank’s database. Later, he got an account opened at the bank with the help of his wife’s colleague, Ch. Srinivas, who masqueraded as K. Ramesh Babu.

He then made a call via Skype to the bank’s customer care service, posing as the Canadian.

“He placed a request for transfer of money from his account to that of Ramesh Babu’s, claiming that it was his beneficiary account. He readily replied to all queries about his identity as he already had details of the customer,” the ACP said.

Eventually, he withdrew the money from the bank’s ATM centres.

On learning about the fraud, the bank dismissed him from service and lodged a complaint with the police. The police recovered Rs. 3.25 lakh in cash, gold jewellery weighing 140 grams and a demand draft for Rs. 4 lakh from him. Ch. Srinivas, who abetted Kishore Reddy in the crime, is still at large.