Kota bank fraud: ICICI bank employee altered customer mobile numbers to steal Rs 4.58 crore; arrested

KOTA: In a major bank fraud, a relationship manager of ICICI Bank, Sakshi Gupta, has allegedly siphoned off Rs 4.58 crore from customer accounts in Kota city.The accused worked at Shriram Nagar branch of DCM area in Kota and committed the fraud during the 2020-23 period.

She was arrested by the Udhyog Nagar police on May 31 following investigation.

The crime first came to light on Feb 18, following which the branch manager lodged a complaint with the police.According to police, for around two-and-a-half years, Sakshi withdrew funds fraudulently from over 100 accounts of 41 customers. She purportedly invested the money in the stock market, but suffered heavy losses. To prevent customers from noticing, she changed the mobile numbers linked to several accounts to numbers belonging to her relatives, ensuring that transaction alerts and OTPs were not received by the real account holders.

Bank manager Tarun Dadhich subsequently filed a complaint against her.According to Udhyog Nagar police station SI Ibrahim, the fraud was first reported on Feb 18. From 2020 to 2023, Sakshi had systematically transferred funds from various customer accounts, in some cases using an elderly woman's account, who was unaware of the activity, as a ‘pool account'. She had transferred over Rs 3 crore into this account.Police probe confirmed that Sakshi misused debit cards, PINs and OTPs for these unauthorised transactions, and even activated overdraft facilities on 40 accounts without consent.

She also prematurely closed fixed deposits of 31 customers, channelling Rs 1.34 crore into unauthorised accounts. In addition, a fraudulent personal loan for Rs 3.4 lakh was disbursed. Many transactions were conducted through insta kiosks and various digital banking platforms, with the accused using debit cards of four customers for ATM and internet banking activity. Funds from these frauds were also sent to Demat accounts as part of an attempted cover-up, police said.A statement issued by the ICICI Bank said, "The interest of our customers are of paramount importance to us. Immediately upon discovering the fraudulent activity, we filed an FIR with the police. We have a zero-tolerance policy against any fraudulent activity and thus suspended the employee involved. We would like to reassure that genuine claims of impacted customers have been settled."

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