Is Your Money Safe in Banks? ICICI Bank Employee Stole Crores From FDs of Customers, Sent to Jail

A shocking case has come to light from Rajasthan’s Kota. A woman officer working in ICICI Bank has duped customers of more than Rs.4 crore. She closed Fixed Deposit (FD) of various customers and misued the funds. She illegally withdrew money from accounts of 41 customers and invested the amount in stocks. The fraud continued for two years, but no one in the bank had any idea about it.

Sakshi Gupta, the relationship manager of the ICICI bank, illegally withdrew Rs 4.58 crores from 110 accounts of 41 customers between the years 2020 and 2023. She invested the money in the stock market. She, however, failed to deposit the money back in the accounts after she incurred heavy losses in the market. She has now been arrested and sent to judicial custody. The police arrested her at her sister’s wedding.

The scam came to light when a customer came to the bank to inquire about his FD. The customer and bank officials got surprised when they noticed that money had already been withdrwan from customer’s account. The bank then filed a case with the police on February 18.

This incident has happened in Shriram Nagar branch of ICICI Bank in DCM area of ​​Udyog Nagar police station area of ​​Kota city.

The woman even changed the mobile numbers of the customers linked with the accounts so that they would not know about the transaction messages.

“She linked the phone numbers of her family members to these accounts and withdrew more than Rs 4 crore. She even devised a system that she used to get the OTPs on her system so that the account holders don’t get a whiff of the fraud,” said investigating officer Ibrahim Khan.

The ICICI Bank has yet to issue a statement. However, sources say that Bank will pay compensation to the customers.

What Police said?

Police said- The report was received on 18 February. Sakshi Gupta was in this branch from 2020 to 2023. During that time, she kept withdrawing money from customers’ accounts. Investigation revealed that Sakshi transferred money from several bank accounts to another account. More than Rs 3 crore was transferred to an old woman’s account till 15 February 2023. This woman did not know much about the account. Sakshi suffered loss in the stock market and most of the money was lost. After investigation, the police arrested Sakshi Gupta on 31 May. The court sent her to jail after one day’s remand.