The honesty of a watchman in Mumbai ensured that Gujarat cricketer Parthiv Patel did not end up losing Rs45 lakh to a fraudster. The incident happened three months ago when Rs45 lakh from the cricketer’s account in Bank Of India (BoI) was transferred to the account of a watchman. The watchman too had an account with BoI.
The unauthorised transfer was allegedly done by an employee of a US-based data outsourcing company working for BoI. The employee managed the transfer of funds by stealing the password and IP address of the cricketer’s account. A team from the CBD police station in Navi Mumbai arrived in city on Tuesday to meet the cricketer in this connection. They went to Parthiv’s house and met his father Ajay Patel.
According to police inspector Shekhar Tore, CBD police station, the team met Parthiv’s father in connection with the case which was lodged with them on June 23 this year. “An officer from Bank of India (BoI), Sharad Chandra Singh, had lodged an FIR stating that Rs45 lakh was transferred from cricketer Parthiv Patel’s account to the account of one Ramakant M Sharma who is a watchman,” Tore told DNA.
He said the bank officials came to know of the fund transfer only when the perplexed watchman approached them about the huge and sudden increase in his bank balance.
The BoI officials immediately re-transferred the amount, said Tore.
"Further investigation revealed that one Nitesh M Salvi who works with a US based HP Company that maintains the data of BOI, allegedly stole the password of Patel's account and then transferred the money to Sharma's account," Tore said.
"I came to know about the incident when I was touring West Indies around three months ago. Somebody had withdrawn Rs45 lakh from our account but we got our money back," said Parthiv. Tore, meanwhile, said that the main accused, who is originally from Hubli, is still at large. Tore however refused to elaborate as to why Salvi did not bother to transfer the funds directly to his account and instead chose the account of the watchman. BoI officials could not be contacted for their comments.
