The crime rates in the national capital have been increasing again. From rape cases, robbery to murder and fraud cases, all these things have shrouded Delhi in its dark clouds. Now, in a case of financial crime, an employee of a private recruitment firm has allegedly put her unemployed wife on the payroll and ensured that she gets her salary on time for over 10 years, causing an eye-popping loss of crore to the company.
After realising that its records were manipulated in December last year, the Delhi-based company initiated an internal enquiry that established the crime. Last week, an FIR was filed with the Delhi Police, resulting in a further probe into this matter.
This fraud case happened in ManpowerGroup Service Private Limited, which provides staffing and recruitment services to several companies.
As per the complaint lodged, one of the employees of ManpowerGroup, Radhaballav Nath, who joined the firm in 2008 as an assistant manager (finance) and was subsequently promoted to the position of manager (finance), allegedly worked out an innovative plan to generate a regular source of income for his unemployed wife at the company’s cost.
Soon as the company attaches high priority to data privacy, it allowed access to the monthly payroll and reimbursement data to only three officers, the director (human resources), the chief human resources officer (CHRO) and the fraudster Nath.
Now, he was an interface between the outside payroll vendor and the other departments of the company, such as HR and finance. Then, he used to send the data related to new joiners, who left the organisation the working employees’ attendance etc. to the payroll vendor to prepare the monthly pay register.
Once the monthly payroll register was prepared, the vendor sent it back to Nath, who further forwarded it to the director (HR) and from there, it was sent to the CHRO for final approval.
The CHRO then used to approve it and mail it back to the director (HR), who then forwarded it to Nath as the final pay register. The accused fraudster was responsible for sending the final pay register to the bank for the release of salaries.
According to the company allegations, it was at this juncture, before sending it to the bank, that Nath used to manipulate it and insert his wife’s name.
“The modus operandi adopted by Radhaballav Nath was that after receiving the approved Excel file containing the payroll data from the office of the CHRO, Mr Radhaballav Nath used to insert an additional row having his wife’s name, Sasmita Raul @ Sasmita Nath, in the said excel sheet containing the payroll data,” said an FIR lodged against Nath.
It added, “Along with inserting the name, he used to add the salary amount in his wife’s name. He also used to tamper with his salary figure. Thereafter, the manipulated payroll file used to be uploaded to the bank portal by Mr Radhaballav Nath, through which the salaries of all ManpowerGroup employees used to be transferred.”
During the internal investigation, it was found out that Nath used to upload the manipulated payroll file on the bank’s portal using the computer system of another employee, who also works as a manager (finance). After uploading the file, he used to delete it from the system.
“Radhaballav Nath was suspended on December 11, 2022, and an internal committee was constituted by ManpowerGroup, which sought his presence to explain the discrepancy noted in the team meeting dated December 8, 2022,” it stated further.
Moreover, the FIR said that on being confronted with documents, Nath admitted that he had illegally transferred Rs 3.6 crore to his wife’s bank account from 2012 onwards. He also admitted that he inflated his salary and transferred Rs 60 lakh to his account over the last several years, totalling a loss of Rs 4.2 crore to the company.
At last, Nath also confessed that he used the money to buy properties in Delhi, Jaipur and his hometown in Odisha, besides investing in mutual funds and other financial schemes, the Delhi-based company said.
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