The Bengaluru Police on Tuesday arrested a vice president of global investment firm Goldman Sachs for allegedly siphoning off $5.4 million (Rs 38.73 crore) to pay debts he incurred at playing poker, The Indian Express reported. Ashwani Jhunjhunwala allegedly committed the crime by logging in to the company’s internal computer systems.
“Ashwani Jhunjhunwala transferred $5.4 million from the company’s account to a private account abroad by logging in through the computers of his three junior colleagues,” Whitefield Deputy Commissioner of Police MN Anucheth said. “He transferred the money in just 10 minutes on September 4. After this transaction, the company, which has a mechanism to track such activities, found that the transaction was made by Ashwani.”
Goldman Sachs filed a complaint with the police after learning of the illegal transaction. Girish, an inspector at the police station where the complaint was filed, said Jhunjhunwala will be produced in a court on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
“We are engaged with the authorities to activate criminal proceedings,” an unidentified company spokesperson said. The copy of the complaint said that Jhunjhunwala contacted his juniors, Gaurav Mishra, Sujith Appaiah and Abhishek Yadav, on the pretext of training them. He then sent them on an errand, and used their computers to transfer the firm’s money to the Industrial Commerce Bank of China (Asia) Limited, Hong Kong.
The company was able to recoup its lost funds immediately. It said they belonged to the bank, not its customers.
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