CHENNAI: A 24-year-old man, who connived with his wife and used her position as an accountant at a transport company to steal Rs 2.3 crore of the company’s fund, was arrested by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) of Chennai police on Sunday.
The suspect was identified as P Mahesh of West Mambalam. The police received a complaint from Jaffer Ibrahim, who owns Madan Transport Company at West Mambalam. His company used to hire trucks from various owners for rent and his firm also has Fastag recharge business as wholesale dealer.
Mahesh’s wife, Keerthana was a manager in the company handling bank accounts. She was also entrusted with net banking transactions.
Taking advantage of this, Keerthana tacitly sent excess rental amounts from company account to truck owners. She would call them and explain that she had sent the money by mistake and have them send it to her personal Gpay account.
She also made false entries as if the truck was taken for rent and made entries of fake lorry numbers. Subsequently, Keerthana would divert the money to the bank accounts of her husband, his friends and relatives.
The couple had kept the fraud running from 2020 to 2022 without raising any suspicion, and had cheated the company of Rs 2.31 crore, police said.
During this period, Keerthana had also received a Fastag recharge amount from customers, which was not credited in the company’s accounts. Mahesh was arrested and remanded to judicial custody.