The EOW conducted the first raid and made first arrest in the high profile multi-crore e-tendering scam. The Economic Offences Wing raided Osmo IT Solution Company at Mansarovar Complex in connection with e-tendering scam here on Thursday.
Superintendent of Police Arun Mishra said two directors and one sales director of the company: Vinay Coudhary, Varun Chaturvedi and Sumit Bolwalkar were detained on Wednesday. And on Thursday they have been arrested, he added. The police have also seized computer hard disks, servers and other equipments during the raids. The equipments seized will be sent to the digital forensic labs in New Delhi and Hyderabad for investigation.
e-tendering scam…
According to the sources the department officials and the private company officials have allegedly changed the bid amount by tampering the data of nine tenders of five departments. After the preliminary investigation a case was registered in this matter.
Tenders since 2016, to be probed
SP Arun Mishra said the time period of the investigation has been extended. Now, the police will investigate the tendering process since 2016. Whereas the MP state electronics development corporation has been executing e-tenders since 2013-14. Around 3.50 lakh tenders had been floated by the corporation since then. Earlier the tenders from January 2018 to March 18 were under the EOWs scanner.
IP address trail
Interestingly the Osmo IT Solution is not the part of any procurement process, they have neither participated in the tendering process nor did it help any firm to file the tenders. But its name came to fore in the scam as during the primary investigations the companies IP address was traced by the investigation agencies which is used in the tampering of the contract.
Lesson from Vyapam drubbing
This time the IT team of the police is taking the hash value of the computers. According to sources the issue of hash value came to fore during the hearing in Vyapam case and the hash value status had created problems to the investigation agency. But this time the police IT team is taking the computer hash value at the time of seizure so as to avoid being proved wrong by the accused in the Court. The team of experts is taking the hash value of the computers in the same office. Not only this the CCTV cameras installed in the office are being kept operative to keep a record of the happenings.
