CHENNAI: A 30-year-old software engineer landed behind bars on Wednesday for helping a friend swindle 49 lakh from customers of a private bank in the city. Working for TCS eServe , which handled the back-end operations of Citibank, she had access to sensitive information of account holders, police said.

Accused Pratiksha used her access to the account details to change the addresses of two customers. This misguided the bank to send credit and debit cards to the new addresses, where proxies received them. They used the cards to purchase goods and withdraw money. The bank found some discrepancies and informed the software company, which later found that the data had been accessed from Pratiksha’s computer.

Based on the complaint of a senior TCS official, bank fraud wing sleuths of the Central Crime Branch nabbed the woman from her house in Ashok Nagar.

During interrogation she confessed to having committed the offence.

Police are now on the lookout for Pratiksha’s accomplices.

Investigating officers said Pratiksha had been working in the company for seven years after completing her master’s in computer application.

According to the police, she was coerced into the crime by a friend who was in dire need of money.

Pratiksha got married a few months ago, and her husband is also a software professional.

She identified some bank accounts lying inactive for more than a year and changed the addresses of the account holders. She then sent requests for credit and debit cards to the bank, as if the customers were doing it.

Pratiyusha's friend collected the documents sent by the bank after waiting near the fake addresses they had entered in the bank accounts. "Her friend is absconding. The friend used the cards and made online transfer to make Rs 49 lakh," a police officer said. The bank officials felt suspicious at one point and verified with the customer who said he had not made any requests or transactions for a while. Later, they came to know someone had manipulated the bank accounts at the back end.

A TCS eServe spokesman said the employee has been suspended. "Preliminary investigations have shown that an employee of TCS eServe, in the process of providing services to one of our clients, undertook some fraudulent transactions pertaining to two customer accounts of the client. As per policy, we have reported the incident to the police, suspended the employee and are working with authorities to complete the investigations, after which further action will be taken. The incident is an isolated one and on the instructions of our client, balances have been restored," he said.

