Bengaluru: A case of an insurance firm staffer defrauding his employer to claim the elusive prize money of a fraud lottery has been brought to a logical conclusion. The man, now a former staffer of Oriental Insurance Company, was Monday found guilty of siphoning off Rs 5.3 crore in 2013-2014 and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 10 years along with a fine of Rs 52 lakh by a special CBI court in Dharwad.T Pradeep of Kannickal in Moolamattom, Idukki district of Kerala, was present in the court when judge Zareena pronounced the judgment.Pradeep, 40, worked as an administrative officer (accounts) of the public sector insurer in Dharwad when he received a fraudulent email claiming he had won a lottery in England. To claim his prize money, Pradeep was asked to make payments towards various charges, special public prosecutor Shivananda Perla told TOI.Initially, Pradeep transferred money from his savings. He later borrowed money from friends, relatives, and others to make online payments to the miscreants who sent him fraudulent lottery emails. Later, the miscreants told Pradeep that his prize money was seized by customs officials at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. They told him Rs 5.3 crore was needed immediately to get the money released and instructed him to transfer the required funds online to different bank account numbers they shared with him.It was then that Pradeep misused his official power and transferred Rs 5.3 crore of the insurance company to the miscreants. “The money reached bank accounts in Nagaland and Manipur,” said Perla.The insurance firm discovered the misappropriation and filed a complaint with the anti-corruption bureau of CBI, Bengaluru.According to the CBI chargesheet, Pradeep manipulated and altered the monthly bank statements. “The prosecution examined 66 witnesses and produced 350 documentary pieces of evidence to prove the case. However, no recovery was made in the case as the entire Rs 5.3 crore was withdrawn by the miscreants, who had opened bank accounts in fake names,” Perla said.
