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Kota ICICI Bank employee swindles ₹4.5 crore from customers, blows it on stock market
ICICI Bank relationship manager Sakshi Gupta, used to change customers' contact details to avoid receiving alerts and siphoned money into pool account.
A relationship manager of an ICICI bank branch in Rajasthan's Kota reportedly swindled around ₹4.58 crore from customers' accounts and lost most of it in the stock market, police said on Friday.
The accused named Sakshi Gupta was posted as a relationship manager at ICICI Banks’s DCM branch, according to a PTI news agency.
The woman was arrested last week from her parental home in Chittorgarh district's Rawatbhata and was sent to judicial custody after a day's remand for interrogation.
According to police, Gupta has been pilfering from more that 110 accounts belonging to 41 customers for around two years at the Kota branch. She allegedly invested this amount in the stock market and lost the majority of it.
The complaint against her was filed by the branch manager Tarun Dadich at Udhyog Nagar Police Station on February 18. The complaint accused her of siphoning ₹4.58 crore from customer accounts.
Changed customers' mobile numbers
To make the siphoning easier, Gupta used to change the mobile number linked with the account holders, to her relative’s numbers, ensuring that customers do not receive transaction alerts or OTPs. Gupta systematically transferred funds to different accounts, in some cases using an elderly women’s account who was unaware of the activities, as a “pool account,” said Sub Inspector Ibrahim. Through her siphoning, Gupta transferred more than ₹3 crore to this account by February 15, 2023.
Sub Inspector Ibrahim also alleged that Gupta misused debit cards, PINs, and OTPs for these transactions, and even activated overdraft facilities on 40 accounts without consent. In addition to this, she permanently closed fixed deposits of 31 customers and funneled over Rs. 1.34 crore, while also taking a personal loan of Rs. 3.40 lakh.
Police said that many transactions were conducted using Insta Kiosk installations and various digital banking platforms, with debit cards of at least 4 customers used for ATM and internet banking. In an attempt to cover up these activities, money from them was sent to demat accounts.
Meanwhile, an ICICI Bank spokesperson, in a press note, said that the interest of costumes is most important and upon discovering the activities the bank immediately filed an FIR. "We have a zero-tolerance policy against any fraudulent activity,” they said, adding that the employee has been suspended and genuine claims of impacted customers have been settled.
