Ex-employee booked for duping Thomas Cook of ₹94 lakh

Former assistant manager of Thomas Cook India Ltd. booked for ₹94 lakh fraud by using company name on 35 invoices to book 250 plane tickets.

MUMBAI: A 39-year-old former assistant manager of the global tours and travel company, Thomas Cook India Ltd., was booked by the MIDC police for allegedly cheating the company to the tune of ₹94 lakh by using its name on 35 invoices to book 250 plane tickets.

HT Image

According to the MIDC police, the case has been registered against Nagesh Santosh Rao, who worked with the company for around five years till he was sacked recently. The FIR was registered following a complaint lodged by associate vice-president Suhail Shaikh.

A MIDC police officer said, “The company appoints an implant (an employee deputed at other firms which give large business) and, accordingly, Rao was posted as an implant with a software firm at SEEPZ area in Andheri.”

On receiving bills from airlines and other companies, Thomas Cook sent the same to the client company for whose employees they had booked the tickets. However, they got an email reply from the software firm stating that the 250 airline tickets and 35 invoices, valued at ₹94.07 lakh, were not used by their employees and they were not liable to pay for the same.

Further investigation revealed that the company learnt that Rao had used the client companies’ unique employee id and code to book flight tickets for people outside of the companies between April 2022 to May 2024 and had billed the same to the client companies’ accounts.

When Rao was given a showcase notice, he told the company that he had misappropriated the amount of ₹94.07 lakh to form a company with his brother-in-law.

“He had also taken help of former employees of the client company to search for people planning to travel and given them tickets from the client companies’ accounts. He had also given them commissions for their help,” said the police officer.

He also said that in a lot of these bookings, the accused had given his own mobile number. Rao has been booked under section 420 (cheating), 406 (criminal breach of trust), 408 (criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant) and 464 (punishments for forgery of the Indian Penal Code).