NRI woman falls prey to ICICI Bank's fraud official, gets duped of ₹16 crore: ‘We deposited our entire….’

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₹16 crore. The victim, Shveta Sharma, who fell prey to ICICI Bank's fraudulent employee, informed BBC that she had transferred money to her bank account in India from her US account to invest in fixed deposits that offered an interest rate of 5.5% to 6% since the interest rate on bank deposits in the US was negligible. She alleged that the bank official, introduced to her by a friend, created “fake accounts, forged her signature, took out debit cards and cheque books in her name", and convinced her to invest in FDs in India just to extort money from her accounts, as per BBC.

This went on for four years, from September 2019 to December 2023, until the scam surfaced in early January when another bank employee offered to get better returns on her money. This led to her discovering that all her fixed deposits had vanished and there was a ₹2.5 crore overdraft taken on one of the deposits. A spokesman for the bank also admitted to the fraud and said, "Whoever is involved will be punished," reported BBC. Despite the bank's assurances to resolve the issue within two weeks, more than six weeks have passed since she raised the complaint.

The victim, who returned to India in 2016 after living for years in the US and Hong Kong, said, "He gave me fake statements, created a fake email ID in my name and manipulated my mobile number in the bank records so I won't get any withdrawal notifications," reported BBC. Shveta Sharma opened an NRE account in 2019 meant for non-resident Indians, on the bank official's advice after visiting the ICICI's branch in old Gurugram. She said, "Over a period of four years from September 2019 to December 2023, we deposited our entire life savings of around ₹13.5 crore in the bank," reported BBC.