Rs 2 cr siphoned off from India's Permanent Mission in Geneva; CBI books accounts officer

New Delhi, Dec 21 (PTI) The CBI has launched a probe into the swindling of more than 2 lakh Swiss francs (around Rs 2 crore) at India's Permanent Mission in Geneva by a former accounts officer posted there, who allegedly siphoned the amount to bankroll his crypto-gambling ventures, officials said.

Mohit, who joined the Permanent Mission in Geneva on December 17, 2024, as an assistant section officer, was given the responsibility to physically submit payment instructions to the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), where the accounts of the Mission are maintained in US dollars (USD) and Swiss francs (CHF), they said.

The discrepancy was detected in the CHF account. The Mission made payments to Swiss vendors in CHF based on their invoices, which carried pre-printed QR codes having the vendor's bank and invoice details coded in them.

The physical copy of the QR codes, along with payment instruction slips signed by the Attache (Admin and Establishment) and DDO Tushar Lakra, is submitted to the UBS to make the necessary payments.

It was a common practice to collate a number of QR codes under a common bank payment instruction slip.

Mohit was assigned the duty to physically carry the QR codes and the payment instruction slips to the UBS.

He also enjoyed account viewing rights along with the Head of Chancery, Amit Kumar.

It is suspected that Mohit surreptitiously replaced some of the vendor QR codes with a self-generated QR code, which diverted the payments to his personal CHF account in UBS instead of the vendor's account.

Using the trick, he allegedly siphoned off over two lakh CHF – more than Rs 2 crore – to his personal account maintained in the UBS this year.

In the process, pre-printed acknowledgement slips attached to the QR codes were not disturbed.

Mohit managed to conceal the diversion of funds, as he edited the monthly bank statements by replacing his name with that of the intended vendor.

The doctored statements were then used during routine reconciliations, effectively neutralising a key financial safeguard and allowing the misappropriations to proceed undetected for months.

The scam surfaced when auditors noticed duplicate payments to a local vendor, Ejey Travels, prompting an in-depth review of the transactions.

The analysis detected a suspected loss of about CHF 200,000, roughly Rs 2 crore. When confronted by the authorities, Mohit gave a written confession admitting diverting the funds to bankroll his crypto-gambling activities.

He was immediately repatriated to India along with his family.

Mohit claimed he paid CHF 12,830 to Ejey Travels to deposit in the Mission's account. The entries of the amount were found in the Mission's account.

In addition, CHF 9,825 and CHF 28,000 were credited by Mohit into the Mission's account before his repatriation.

The CBI has booked Mohit under the provisions of criminal breach of trust, forgery, falsification of accounts and the Prevention of Corruption Act.

This was one of the number of cases where government officials embezzled public money to funnel their online trading, gaming, gambling or cyrptotrading activities.

Earlier this year, the CBI arrested Rahul Vijay, a senior finance manager in the Airports Authority of India (AAI), for allegedly embezzling more than Rs 232 crore of public funds and diverting them into his personal online trading accounts.

The CBI also booked a Bank of India officer, Hitesh Singla, for allegedly diverting more than Rs 16 crore from 127 accounts, including dormant ones, which he allegedly funnelled into online trading and crypto dealings. PTI ABS ARI