After practically 20 years of investigation, the CBI on July 12 arrested a personal agency’s former director accused of defrauding State Financial institution of India out of Rs 8 crore. The company stated it used superior picture search expertise to arrest the accused as she had been residing beneath an assumed identification.
The CBI recognized the arrested accused as Mani M Sekhar, who was director of Indo Marks & BTC Residence Merchandise Personal Restricted.
The fraud case dates again to 2002-2005, when Bengaluru-based couple Ramanujam Muthuramalingam Sekhar and Mani M Shekhar allegedly cheated SBI’s abroad department.
In accordance with the CBI, they cheated Rs 8 crore by means of the misuse of non-fund based mostly limits within the title of the corporate and its sister considerations.
In 2007, the CBI filed a chargesheet towards Ramanujam and Mani. However because the couple failed to seem earlier than the court docket regardless of a number of summonses, warrants had been issued. In 2009, the court docket declared them proclaimed offenders. Whereas there have been no traces of the couple, the CBI additionally introduced a Rs 50,000 money reward. Whereas different co-accused within the case had been tried and both convicted or acquitted, the first accused remained elusive.
The CBI stated the couple had modified their identities completely: Ramanujam Shekhar lived beneath the assumed identification of Krishna Kumar Gupta, whereas Mani M Shekhar turned Geetha Krishna Kumar Gupta. They allegedly modified each traceable element – cell numbers, e mail addresses, PAN, and all KYC data used previous to the 2007 chargesheet.
Tracing digital footprints
The case’s breakthrough got here by means of trendy investigative methods. Appearing on particular intelligence inputs, the CBI deployed superior analytical capabilities of synthetic intelligence-based picture search instruments to hint the fugitives’ digital footprints.
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The picture comparability and evaluation expertise proved decisive in figuring out the couple residing beneath assumed identities in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, the CBI stated. “With photograph matching ranges of greater than 90 per cent, the picture search instruments enabled correct identification regardless of their assumed identities,” confirmed a CBI official, highlighting synthetic intelligence.
CBI groups thus efficiently traced the accused to Indore. Nonetheless, the investigation revealed Ramanujam had died in 2008, only a 12 months after being charge-sheeted and a 12 months earlier than being declared a proclaimed offender, whereas residing beneath his assumed identification.
The CBI on Thursday produced Mani M Shekhar, now generally known as Geetha Krishna Kumar Gupta, earlier than a Bengaluru court docket, which remanded her in judicial custody for trial proceedings which have been pending for over 15 years.