Ex-bank employee arrested for siphoning Rs 6.65 cr

A former high ranking employee of a MNC bank has been arrested for allegedly duping the bank of Rs 6.65 crore by misusing his position, police said today.
The Delhi Police's Economic Offence Wing has arrested Tejash Mukesh Mehta, a former Associate Director (Client Coverage) with the Gurgaon branch of Standard Chartered Bank, for siphoning off Rs 6.65 crore by misusing his power, a senior Delhi Police official said.
Elaborating his modus operandi, DCP (EOW) K K Vyas said Mehta used to liaison with various clients and was primarily involved in disbursement of working capital demand loan (WCDL) availed by various bank clients.

He had forged the request letters of one of the bank's prominent clients who was availing the WCDL facility.
"The accused used to prepare forged requests by scanning the original request letter and keep the signature and letter head of the client unchanged and used to change the date of request, amount, rate of interest and period," Vyas said.
Later, Mehta used to fax the forge request letter to bank's processing team. When a loan amount was credited in the client's account, he used to prepare the forged request of the client to transfer the said amount in his account.

"After which, using his official position, he got the amount transferred from one account to another on verbal directions and later get the money debited in his account," the DCP said.

The bank had detected the fraud and lodged an FIR against Mehta on January 14. He was arrested on Sunday.
During interrogation, he told police that he was addicted to speculative trading in share market and had lost heavily.
In May 2010, Pearl Global had requested for additional facilities for their working capital which was sanctioned after approval from credit team.
The company, however, was informed by Mehta that a margin of 20 per cent, around Rs 2.43 crore, was required for sanction for the working capital.

"The margin money duly transferred by the company was fraudulently received in his account. After repayment of sanctioned amount, the company asked back the margin money from Mehta who fraudulently debited an amount of Rs 3.30 crore from the account of another client to square off the money," Vyas said.