Former Uber employee booked for Rs one cr embezzlement

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Uber has accused one of its former employees of embezzling over Rs 1 crore by sneaking in fake driver profiles in the company's list of drivers, police said on Tuesday.

The company alleged that the employee, Vinay Gera, tampered with the list of drivers associated with them in the company's server and added 388 fake drivers, who were not associated with the company.

These profiles were linked to 18 bank accounts in which the money was transferred.

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The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) found the allegations prima facie true, and at its recommendation an FIR was registered against Gera at Sushant Lok Police Station on Monday.

According to the complaint filed by Prabhanjan Kumar, the authorised signatory of Uber India Systems Private Limited in April last year, Gera worked in the firm's driver operations team from August to December 2021 at its Sector-44 office.

He was employed by the vendor company TeamLease Services Limited India and had resigned from Uber on December 19, 2021. Gera was responsible for the driver arrears function.

"To avoid inconveniencing driver partners, a spreadsheet is automatically uploaded regularly. A large number of transactions were processed by this automated spreadsheet and Viney Gera was responsible for updating the details of the driver partner accounts to be paid. Viney Gera created and placed a number of non-genuine driver partner accounts in the spreadsheet," the app-based taxi firm said in its complaint.

Upon inquiry, the firm found that of the 388 fake drivers' profiles created by Gera, 191 profiles' IP address matched the IP address of Gera's office computer.

"... 191 cases out of 388 cases matched with the IP addresses used by Viney Gera to log into his work computer on the same day as the creation of the accounts.

"In the above manner, a total amount of Rs 1,17,03,033 has been fraudulently paid to these fake driver partners into only 18 bank accounts," read the complaint.

According to police, Gera has been booked under sections 408 (criminal breach of trust by servant), 420 (cheating), 477-A (falsification of accounts), and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

"We are investigating the matter and the accused will be arrested as soon as possible," said Inspector Deepak Kumar, SHO, Sushant Lok Police Station.

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