The Whitefield division police have unearthed a major white-collar crime and arrested two staffers of a global financial services firm on the charge of siphoning off ₹12.15 crore from the accounts of its international customers.
The accused, Ramu Chandrappa, who lives Doddagubbi, and Suresh Babu N. from Bellandur, joined the global firm as branch accountants in 2013. They had access to the account details of customers from all over the world. A few months ago, they started transferring money from the accounts to their personal accounts. “They used the money to invest in real estate and to buy gold and silver jewellery,” a police source said.
The fraud came to light three months ago during the company’s annual audit, when the management realised that cash was being transferred from accounts of international customers to local accounts in Bengaluru. An internal investigation uncovered the scam and subsequently, a complaint was filed with the Marathahalli police.
On Monday, the police arrested the two men and recovered cash amounting to ₹8.14 crore from their accounts. The rest of the money had been used up to purchase three acres of land in Doddaballapur, a four-storeyed house in Kothanur, 470 gm of gold jewellery, and 8 kg of silver articles, which police have seized.
According to the police, the men had submitted fake education certificates at the time they were hired. According to the City Police Commissioner, as an appreciation of the investigative work, PSI Muniraj and team will be given a cash reward of ₹50,000.
