The Additional Superintendent of Police (SP) of Kota, Rajasthan, has disclosed to us that the majority of these customers, from whom she stole the money to fuel her stock market ambitions were senior citizens who were not so tech savvy. The police also revealed that she concealed her tracks and digital footprint so well that even her colleagues and the branch manager were unable to detect any hint of it. It was the bank’s internal audit team who managed to crack this scam and expose it.
The matter was highlighted by ICICI Bank’s internal audit team, and the bank told ET Wealth Online that all affected customers have been refunded; there was no loss to any customer.
After ICICI Bank’s audit team flagged this scam, the bank’s branch manager filed an FIR case against her, accusing her of orchestrating this elaborate scam. Based on this FIR, she was arrested by the Udyog Nagar police station, Kota, Rajasthan, on May 31, 2025, during her sister’s wedding. The charge sheet has not been filed yet. However, the police said it will be done once the full investigation is over.
How did this 26-year-old girl manage to loot Rs 4.58 crore without anyone noticing?
Dilip Saini, Additional Superintendent of Police (SP), Kota, Rajasthan, told ET Wealth Online that, “She is now 26 years old, and this crime was committed by her from 2020 to 2023, i.e., during her period of employment with ICICI Bank. Our police investigation has revealed that she used multiple stockbroking websites and apps like ICICI Direct and Zerodha (Kite) to trade in the derivative segment (futures and options).”
When asked how no customer of the bank noticed this scam which she ran for three years, Saini told: “She even changed the mobile numbers of customers to her own close relative’s numbers so that they didn’t know about these transactions.” The OTPs and alerts never reached the real account holders, and these customers never checked their bank balances either, which made it easy for her to run this scam.
When the Rajasthan Police interrogated her, she revealed that most of these illegal and unauthorised transactions were done by her through the ICICI Bank’s Insta Kiosk and digital banking channels. The police investigation found that she changed entries in the bank’s internal software to hide her activities.
Also read: ICICI Bank branch manager duped depositors of crores for years to meet targets
She withdrew funds from FD (fixed deposit) accounts by prematurely breaking them, created overdrafts, and even took personal loans in the names of innocent customers, without any of them knowing or authorising it.
Saini said: “Investigation also revealed that she used a third-party account as a pool account to collect all the money she took out by prematurely withdrawing the FDs, creating overdrafts (ODs) and even taking personal loans in the customer’s name.”
A pool account is an account that consolidates all collected money from the other FD, OD, and loan accounts and deposits it into a single place. From this pool account, she transferred the money to her demat accounts in ICICI Direct, Zerodha (Kite), and others. This method saved her time, as managing money across approximately 40 bank accounts is more difficult than handling it from a single account.
She used ICICI Bank customer’s online FD website to prematurely break FDs belonging to 31 customers and transferred Rs 1.35 crore into unauthorised accounts. She also took out a personal loan of Rs 3.4 lakh in someone else’s name and executed transactions through digital platforms such as Insta Kiosk, ATM, and internet banking, even using the debit cards of four unsuspecting customers.
Saini explained: “Moreover, our investigation also revealed that she even took money from her father-in-law and invested it in the stock market. It seems from our investigation that despite losing money in the stock market trades, she used to invest more and more money by taking it from innocent customers’ different types of bank accounts (FD, OD, etc.).”
ICICI Bank’s audit team exposed this scam
Saini said: “This scam that she used to run during her employment (2020-2023) was brought to our notice by the ICICI Bank branch manager, who in turn was informed by the bank’s internal audit team. Although we arrested her, we believe such a young girl could not have managed to conduct this scam alone; there must be other accomplices. We are still investigating. We have traced all the affected bank customers and found most of them were senior citizens who are not so tech savvy and merely invested in FDs and other banking products.”
An ICICI Bank spokesperson said, “The interests of our customers are of paramount importance to us. Immediately upon discovering the fraudulent activity, we filed an FIR with the police. We have a zero-tolerance policy against any fraudulent activity and thus suspended the employee involved. We would like to re-assure you that genuine claims of impacted customers have been settled.”
