Bengaluru woman accused staff of siphoning 70 lakh

Six years after a 54-year-old Bengaluru woman discovered that close to ₹70 lakh was allegedly siphoned off from her savings account of HSBC Bank in Delhi, her FIR was registered at Barakhamba Road Police Station on June 14.

The account holder complained to police that her former relationship manager at the bank misappropriated the funds.

Tara Rao, a resident of Bengaluru who had moved to Delhi between 2008-10, told The Hindu, “On June 15, 2011, I discovered that the money had left my accounts, and exactly six years later, things finally started moving and an FIR was registered.”

Ms. Rao said that she was shocked to realise that her hard-earned money in two of her accounts with the HSBC were gone.

She alleged that the person responsible for it was a relationship manager assigned to her by the bank, Abhishek Rohatgi, who allegedly opened other bank accounts in her name, forged her signature to create fake documents, misused her credit card, entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to make investments and obtained insurance policies in her name.

In May 2011, Ms. Rao discovered the irregularities and when she called the bank, she was allegedly informed that Abhishek had left their services two months earlier.

According to her, the alleged fraud and transactions took place from December 2010 to May 2011 when she was changing cities.

The relationship manager, she said, bought several insurance policies in her name including two Aviva Life Insurance, Birla Sun Life Insurance and one Canara HSBC policies.

“I can’t even afford those policies. And the employee forged my signature to obtain them and even gave the age wrong in order to prevent mandatory health check-up,” she said.

IDs misused

Ms. Rao, who suspected him because he was in possession of all her identification documents, alleges that he opened a Deutsche Bank account without her knowledge using a cheque leaf she had given to transfer funds between her two HSBC accounts.

She alleged that he made investments in her name in a company and gave them two post-dated cheques amounting to ₹16 lakh.

A second investment was allegedly made in another entity using a forged cheque for ₹6 lakh.

She alleged he gave his own phone number and a fake email id.

When asked if she received messages on her phone of the transaction made using her account, Ms. Rao said she never got any.

When she approached the bank, they sent her a letter denying all the charges point by point. “Your claim for compensation is not supportive and the losses as claimed by you, does not stand substantiated,” read the letter dated January 27, 2012.

The police have registered a case under section 406 (breach of trust), 409 (breach of trust by public servant or banker), 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and have begun investigation.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (New Delhi) B.K. Singh confirmed that the FIR has been registered.

“EOW had recommended registering of the FIR but the case file was lying in the store as Ms. Rao was not in the city. It was when she pursued the case again, that we registered the FIR,” he said. Repeated attempts to contact HSBC for comment were not successful.