Employee siphons off ₹1.45 Cr from architect’s account

MUMBAI: A 45-year-old accountant working with architect and interior designer Samira Rathod has been booked for allegedly siphoning off ₹1.45 crore from various accounts of her employer. The accountant was working with the architect since 2008, police said. The Dadar police have booked Rutuja Parab, 45, following a complaint lodged by the architect who runs Samira Rathod Designer Atelier in Prabhadevi.

According to the police, Parab, a resident of Dombivli, was hired by Rathod in 2008. Initially, she was doing her work properly. Later, her employer started receiving complaints about Parab from clients as well as from her chartered accountants. She even paid a penalty for not filing income tax returns on time due to purported delay on the part of the employee.

“However, every time Parab was confronted with the issues, she told Rathod that there were some issues in her family because of which she was disturbed and every time she assured her employer to sort them out soon and concentrate on work,” said a police officer.

After getting tired of the complaints, in March, the architect decided to sack her, said a police officer. After Parab left, Rathod hired two new people, including a chartered accountant, to look after the accounting. “When the accountants properly checked the architect’s bank accounts, the CA realised that an amount of ₹ 1.46 crores had been transferred from Rathod’s bank account to that of Parab’s that included ₹17 lakhs in 2021, ₹33 lakhs in 2022 and ₹96 lakhs in 2023. When they pointed out the transfers to the architect, she said she had never made any transfers to Parab’s bank accounts,” said a police officer.

When Rathod called Parab to the office and questioned her, she confessed to the crime, police said.

She used OTPs that would come in Rathod’s email to make the transactions.

In this fashion, between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2023, Parab had transferred money from Rathod’s bank accounts to that of her own. She even forged a bank statement of Rathod and submitted it to her chartered accountants to ensure that the allegedly fraudulent transfers remained under wraps.

A case has been registered against Parab under sections 408 (criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant), 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery) of the Indian Penal Code and under sections 43 and 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000. She will be questioned soon, said police.