Assistant General Manager (AGM) of a private company and vice president of a reputed private bank have been arrested by police for committing a fraud close to Rs 2 crore.
According to Mid-Day, the accused were identified as Kaushalya Negi, who is an assistant general manager (AGM) of Datamatics, a US-based company and Simmi Sebastian, vice-president, CitiBank. The duo has been arrested by the MIDC police. Negi and Sebastian along with two more people are alleged to have started a fake company in Panvel. They employed 46 people as part-timers whose bank accounts were opened up to avert suspicion. The police claims that Negi and Sebastian managed to misappropriate funds which were originally meant for the data collection company and they deliberately turned the roots of transaction to their fake company for five long years. According to the police, Negi was employed by her company in 2012 and, later, she managed to get three promotions and awards. Her performance won the trust of her seniors.
A police officer told the leading daily, "Negi would deposit small amounts (around Rs 15,000 to 20,000) into these accounts each month. She would tell them that Datamatics was depositing the money into their accounts because she needed to save tax and had hence asked her employer to transfer some money to their account. Nobody ever questioned her."
In 2015, she employed few of her old friends, relatives, colleagues in a fake company named AXL Data Solutions in Panvel and assured them that they will earn money and profits on a monthly basis. The Mid-Day report further states that she also created a bank account for AXL and transferred the money from these 46 people's accounts into AXL's account herself. "Sebastian was the nominee in AXL. Negi's husband Milind Patil and Sebastian's wife Parmila's accounts too have been found to be associated with AXL's. This was happening for five years in connivance with other accused who are yet to be arrested. We also found that four more bank accounts belonged to Negi and Sebastian and two more people are involved," a police official told the leading daily.
The total estimated fraud is of close to Rs 2 crore but the cops suspect that the amount might be higher than reported. The accused were booked and arrested under sections 406 (breach of trust), 419, 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 477(a) (falsification of accounts), and 120(b) (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and sections of the IT Act.
