Between 2020 and 2023, a 26-year-old relationship manager at ICICI Bank in Kota, Rajasthan, was arrested for stealing Rs 4.58 crore from clients, including senior seniors. This problem was discovered after the bank informed the police about it. The money was utilized by the RM for speculative futures and options (F&O) stock market trading. According to the bank, all depositors have received their money back after learning about the theft. To learn more, continue reading.
Most of these customers were elderly and less tech-savvy, and she stole money from them to support her stock market aspirations. Additionally, the police disclosed that she was so adept at hiding her digital imprint and tracks that not even the branch manager and her coworkers could find any indication of them. This scam was discovered and exposed by the bank’s internal audit team. The internal audit team at ICICI Bank brought attention to the issue. According to a bank spokesman, no consumers suffered any losses; all impacted customers have had their money back.
She was accused of masterminding this complex scam by the branch manager of ICICI Bank, who filed a formal complaint against her once the bank’s audit team discovered it. On May 31, 2025, at her sister’s wedding, she was taken into custody by the Udyog Nagar police station in Kota, Rajasthan, on the basis of this FIR. The charge document is still pending filing. But according to the police, it would be carried out after the thorough investigation is finished.
How was it possible for this 26-year-old female to steal Rs 4.58 crore without anybody noticing?
According to Dilip Saini, Additional Superintendent of Police (SP), Kota, Rajasthan, “She is currently 26 years old, and she committed this crime between 2020 and 2023, which is when she worked for ICICI Bank.” According to the results of our police investigation, she traded in the derivatives market (futures and options) using a number of stockbroking websites and applications, including ICICI Direct and Zerodha (Kite).
“She even changed the mobile numbers of customers to her own close relatives’ numbers so that they didn’t know about these transactions,” Saini said in response to a question on how no bank customers spotted this fraud, which she ran for three years. She was able to carry out this scam with ease because the actual account holders never received the OTPs or alerts, and they also never checked their bank accounts.
She admitted to the Rajasthan Police that she used the ICICI Bank’s Insta Kiosk and online banking platforms to conduct the majority of these unlawful and unauthorized activities. She altered entries in the bank’s internal software to conceal her activity, according to the police inquiry.
She made overdrafts, took out personal loans in the names of unwitting clients, and prematurely closed FD (fixed deposit) accounts to withdraw money without their knowledge or consent.
“The investigation also showed that she took out all the money by making overdrafts (ODs), taking out personal loans in the customer’s name, and prematurely withdrawing the FDs, using a third-party account as a pool account,” Saini added.
A pool account is one that deposits all of the money that has been gathered from the various loan, FD, and OD accounts in one location. She moved the funds from this pool account to her demat accounts at ICICI Direct, Zerodha (Kite), and other places. Since it is more difficult to manage money from 40 or so bank accounts than from one, this strategy saved her time.
She deposited Rs 1.35 crore into unauthorized accounts and prematurely broke 31 clients’ FDs via the ICICI Bank customer online FD website. Additionally, she obtained a Rs 3.4 lakh personal loan in another person’s name and used the debit cards of four unwary consumers to complete transactions via online banking, ATMs, and Insta Kiosk.
She even stole money from her father-in-law and used it to invest in the stock market, Saini clarified. Our study suggests that she used to invest an increasing amount of money from the various bank accounts (FD, OD, etc.) of unsuspecting consumers, even though she lost money on stock market trades.
Fraud was Exposed by ICICI Bank’s Audit Team.
Saini stated: “The ICICI Bank branch manager, who was notified by the bank’s internal audit team, brought to our attention this scam that she used to run during her employment (2020–2023).” We think there may have been more conspirators since even though we detained her, such a little girl could not have pulled off this scam on her own. We’re still looking into it. After tracking down every impacted bank customer, we discovered that the majority were elderly individuals who were not very tech-savvy and only had investments in FDs and other financial products.
A Spokesperson a ICICI Bank stated, “We place a high priority on our customers’ interests. As soon as we learned of the fraudulent behavior, we reported it to the police. The employee in question was suspended since we have a zero-tolerance policy against any fraudulent activities. We want to remind you that the legitimate complaints of the affected customers have been resolved.
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