CIDCO Employment Scam: First arrest, mastermind on run

The CBD Belapur police made the first arrest in the CIDCO employment scam The state exchequer was duped of around Rs 280 crore over the last 5 years 20172023 by a CIDCO employee involved in an inhouse crimeSagar Tapadia an assistant personnel officer at CIDCO Belapur orchestrated the scam using information from approximately 28 fake employees to defraud the state exchequer Tapadia is on the run and authorities aim to arrest Tapadia before his anticipatory bail hearing on May 30ldquoOur men are out looking for himrdquo said Senior Inspector Giridhar Gore of CBD Belapur police stationAccording to the police FIR the state exchequer was duped of Rs 281 croreAlso Read Mumbai PIL highlighting LLB student woes bears fruitFirst breakthroughInspector Gore confirmed the breakthrough in the case stating that Nandkumar Manjule 40 a manager with Mauli Credit Society in Akola has been arrested Mastermind Tapadia also has connections to Akola and knew the accused managerRegarding Manjulersquos role Inspector Gore explained that Manjule opened 13 savings accounts in his credit society without verifying the mandatory lsquoKnow Your Customerrsquo KYC requirements Additionally Manjule would withdraw money from these accounts using withdrawal slips as per Tapadiarsquos requirementsWhen asked if Manjule was entitled for any kickback or commission from Tapadia Inspector Gore said ldquoTapadia would help Manjule by paying him R10000R15000 when requiredrdquoRegarding the role of other banks or financial institutions Inspector Gore stated ldquoWe have found the details of other banks and financial institutions It will be too early to make any comment on the role of any more people till we arrest TapadiardquoldquoOur inquiries have revealed that Tapadia was using the personal details of the public who would approach him on the behest of getting some CIDCO work done and would furnish their personal details including PAN Aadhaar etc and he used the same scanned documents to open various bank accounts which even the document holder concerned had no clue aboutrdquo said the police officerTip the icebergDCP Suresh Mengade who is also the Chief Vigilance Officer CVOat CIDCO said ldquoI received a complaint a few months ago about TDS being deducted from the complainantrsquos bank account as he was neither an employee of CIDCO nor had carried out any work for CIDCO This raised suspicion and we started our internal proberdquoldquoWe learned the main accused Sagar Tapadia who worked as an assistant personnel officer in the personnel department of CIDCO presently under suspension was the brain behind this crimerdquo Mengade explainedHow crime was carried outWhen asked to elaborate on the modus operandi the Chief Vigilance Officer said ldquoThe accused would raise forged bills by submitting fictitious and forged roll calls attendance muster of contractual employees who allegedly were shown to have carried out work on behalf of different departments of CIDCO These bills were then personally presented by the accused to the accounts department of CIDCO and get them cleared The payments would be cleared through the online payment mode to various banks cooperative credit societies and financial institutions where the alleged employees would have bank accountsrdquoldquoOur inquiry revealed that the accused conned the state exchequer from 2017 to 2023 using fictitious bills of 28 fake employeesrdquo said the CVOCIDCO sources expressed the irony that neither the accounts department nor the internal auditors detected any wrongdoing until the case came to light This highlights the diligence and alertness of the CIDCO staff and had it not been for the case the embezzlement would have persistedWhat nextCIDCO MD and Vice Chairman Sanjay Mukherjee has initiated an internal departmental inquiry against all involved including Tapadia A comprehensive audit covering the past ten years is underway and preventive measures will be implemented based on the audit report expected in a month Internal system upgrades will also be carried out to prevent future incidents