Kota, Rajasthan: A relationship manager at ICICI Bank’s Kota branch has been arrested for siphoning off more than Rs 4.58 crore from customers’ fixed deposits over three years and gambling it away in the stock market.
According to reports, the accused, Sakshi Gupta, used her position to discreetly manipulate account details and hide the fraud.
Gupta manipulated customer accounts, diverted OTPs
According to the investigation, Gupta exploited the ‘User FD’ feature to withdraw funds from 110 FDs belonging to 41 account holders between 2020 and 2023. In order to avoid detection, she allegedly replaced the customers' registered mobile numbers with those of her own family members. This allowed her to intercept OTPs and confirmation alerts.
“She even installed a system on her device to receive all OTPs directly. The account holders had no idea their money was being siphoned off," said investigating officer Ibrahim Khan, as quoted by NDTV.
The scam came to light only in February this year, when a customer visited the bank to inquire about his fixed deposit. A subsequent internal check exposed the massive fraud. Gupta was arrested during her sister’s wedding and has since been remanded to judicial custody.
ICICI Bank's Statement
An ICICI Bank spokesperson said, “The interest of our customers are of paramount importance to us. Immediately upon discovering the fraudulent activity, we filed an FIR with the police. We have a zero-tolerance policy against any fraudulent activity and thus suspended the employee involved. We would like to reassure that genuine claims of impacted customers have been settled.”
