NEW DELHI: Four persons, including a chartered accountant who is also an MBA and a Unitech employee, were arrested for allegedly siphoning off95 lakh from the Uninor office located at Saket Community Centre. According to south district police, the fraud was committed after the Unitech employee stole cheques from his office.
Chartered accountant Manoj Pahwa (34), Unitech staffer Rahul Sharma, aeronautical engineer Varun Mittal and his friend Nitin Sharma were arrested in the past two days from Meerut, south Delhi, Ghaziabad and Rohini. Another accused, Amrita Kumari who is Varun's colleague, is absconding.
"They had allegedly stolen 13 cheques of Unitech Wireless and encashed them through different accounts," DCP (south) HGS Dhaliwal. He added that it has been found that Pahwa, who owns Manoj Pahwa and Associates and has foreign clients on his rolls, might even be involved in "turning black money white". "We have got four days' custody of the accused and will investigate this claim,'' said Dhaliwal. Manoj's wife is principal of a reputed school in Delhi while his brother is a doctor.
The arrests came following investigations into a complaint filed by Uninor, a joint venture of Telenor and Unitech, a construction company. Uninor had got national and international 2G spectrum long-distance licences.
"The company approached police on September 18 claiming that95 lakh had been debited unauthorized by different account-holders from its three accounts in HDFC Bank," Dhaliwal said. During investigations it came to light that the money has been debited in 13 different accounts. It was also revealed that the cheques had been stolen from the company office in Saket and later the signature of authorized person had been forged.
The holders of beneficiary accounts were traced and a few of them told police that their accounts have been utilized for transaction purpose and a nominal commission or cut was also given in exchange of the use of their account, Dhaliwal said. In the course of investigations, a few account-holders were found missing and money fraudulently debited in their account was found to have been withdrawn. These accounts were found to be related to a few private companies namely Globe Marketing, SM Enterprises, Primvira Management Solution and Delhi Sales Corporation. "These companies were found to be involved in using accounts against bogus bills raised by the accused and sometimes converting black money into white," Dhaliwal said.
Pahwa was the common link in all these accounts. "He was traced and interrogated. He broke down and disclosed that he had received three forged cheques from Varun Mittal, a Meerut-based aeronautical engineer," Dhaliwal said. Besides6.48 lakh cash, a 1-kg gold brick was recovered from Meerut. "He disclosed that he had received all the cheques from Rahul, a Gurgaon-based hotel management executive, who was an executive accountant with Uninor. "Rahul stole 13 loose cheques from his office. Mittal took these to Amrita, who forged signatures, and forwarded them to Pahwa," Dhaliwal said.
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