Employee accused of embezzling ₹2.60 cr from Malad-based firm

A business development executive at a consultancy in Mumbai has been booked for allegedly embezzling ₹2.6 crore ($350,000) over a 22-month period. The accused allegedly fabricated orders through fake email addresses and forged bills. The owner of the consultancy realized something was wrong when he encountered bounced emails while following up on pending payments. The accused has been booked under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Information Technology Act.

Mumbai: A business development executive at a Malad-based business management consultancy was booked on Friday for allegedly embezzling ₹2.6 crore over a period of 22 months. The accused, Dharmik Mukesh Chouhan, purportedly siphoned the money by fabricating orders through fake email addresses and forging bills.

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According to the owner of Loyrex Solutions, Sandeep Bhat, the accused had joined the company in August 2021. Over time Chouhan gained his confidence and was asked to deliver certain orders. For this, he was given access to the company’s email and the right to make invoices.

“He worked so well that we gave him free rein over the processes. Sometimes, when the payments of an order wouldn’t come through, he would say he would get the clients to pay or that it is a big client who might order again so we shouldn’t make delayed payment a big issue,” said Bhat. In October 2023, Bhat realised something was wrong when he replied to a mail chain of pending payments and the mail bounced.

Bhat then started making similar calls and emails to some of the other clients whose payments were yet to come. In some cases, people over the phone said that they had never bought anything from their company and other people responded to the emails with discrepancies on the number of devices or the prices.

“An audit of the company’s accounts and Chouhan’s personal records unveiled the extent of the fraud. The accused confessed to fabricating purchase orders and bills before pocketing the proceeds from product sales,” stated a Malad police officer.

The accused has been booked under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 408 (criminal breach of trust by servant or clerk), 420 (cheating and dishonesty), 467 (forgery of valuable document), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 471 (producing forged documents as genuine) of the Indian Penal Code as well as the relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.