CBI books AAI employee for siphoning off ₹232 cr into his personal accounts

The CBI has registered an FIR against a senior manager of the Airport Authority of India for allegedly siphoning off more than Rs 232 crore into his personal accounts through a complex trail of fictitious accounting entries in three years during his posting at the Dehradun airport, officials said.

The alleged embezzlement by Rahul Vijay, senior manager, finance and accounts, was detected in an internal audit, which flagged abnormal capitalisation of assets in the financial records between 2019-20 and 2022-23, they said.

The Airport Authority of India (AAI) constituted a committee to verify the findings, which highlighted a complex trail of fictitious accounting entries, asset inflation, and unauthorised fund transfers from the authority's accounts to Vijay's personal accounts.

Chandrakanth P, senior manager (finance), AAI, filed a formal complaint with the CBI on August 18, which became the basis of the FIR to be probed by the Economic Offences Unit of the agency.

Vijay's alleged manipulation involved creation of non-existent capital assets and duplication of legitimate work orders, enabling him to funnel massive sums into his personal accounts, they said.

It is alleged that Vijay, who was the authorised signatory in AAI's official bank accounts with the State Bank of India, created three different user IDs to facilitate a clandestine transfer of funds.

He allegedly tested the system initially with minor transactions before escalating to larger amounts.

"He showed an asset creation of about Rs 189 crore in the official records, which never existed, only to get the money transferred to his personal accounts," the complaint alleged.

Vijay transferred money to a contractor of the AAl, and for the same work he transferred money to his own account by inflating the figures, it alleged.

"For example, on 29.09.2021, he created genuine assets worth Rs 67.81 crore for New Terminal Building Phase 1 electrical work. On the next date, he created 17 additional fictitious assets of Rs 189 crore out of the above-mentioned 13 original assets valuing Rs 13.58 crore by adding one zero and duplicating the entries, and got the entire money transferred in his account.

"Further, an amount of Rs 43 crore through fraudulent entries was charged off under various revenue expenditure heads on different dates during the said period," the complaint alleged.