After one-year-long search, man who duped firm of ₹1 crore in Gurugram arrested

After more than a year-long search, a man who defrauded his firm of ₹1 crore by fraudulently booking air tickets for travel agents and pocketing the money by exploiting system loopholes was arrested in Gurugram on Tuesday, police officers aware of the matter said on Wednesday.

The case dates to August 1, 2021, when the firm, which operated a call centre in the city for one of the country’s top airlines, providing flyers with the ability to book and cancel air tickets, filed a police complaint that one of its employees had defrauded it to the tune of ₹1 crore.

The arrested man, Roshan Mishra, 30, of Gopalganj in Bihar, the prime suspect in the case, began working for the firm in early 2020. His responsibility entailed booking and cancelling tickets, giving him access to the firm’s user ID and password, which he used to commit the alleged fraud, said investigators.

Mishra began the fraud when he discovered the loopholes in the system, said a police officer associated with the case. “He used different user IDs and passwords to book airline tickets for travel agents. However, instead of providing the firm’s bank account information, he provided his personal account number for transferring the fare amount,” said inspector Savit Kumar, station house officer of the Cybercrime police station (west).

The firm discovered the fraud after an audit revealed that the amount received by the firm did not match the total cost of the airline tickets booked.

Although the firm filed the complaint in 2021, the first information report was registered in May 2022 after a thorough investigation confirmed the allegations.

SHO Kumar said they had been looking for Mishra for more than a year because he was the main suspect and the actual financial beneficiary.

According to investigators, Mishra was constantly changing locations to avoid arrest. He was said to have sought refuge in Bihar, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and other states where raids had occurred in the previous year.

Vipin Ahlawat, assistant commissioner of police (cybercrime), said that Mishra was placed on a three-day remand for detailed questioning to determine who else was involved in the crime with him and what he did with the money amassed.

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