Top Goldman Sachs executive in India arrested for trying to swindle Rs 38 crore from company

A top executive of Goldman Sachs in India was arrested by Bengaluru police on Tuesday on charges of allegedly attempting to swindle Rs 38 crore (US $5.4 million) from the company.

Ashwani Jhunjhunwala, the vice-president (Foreign Exchange and Equity Settlements) of the investment company’s Bengaluru office, is accused of logging on to computers belonging to his juniors and carrying out illegal transactions, The News Minute reported. 

In a statement, Bengaluru City Police said it has arrested two people including an employee of Goldman Sachs for fraudulently misappropriating company's funds, amounting to US$ 5.4 million by transferring the said amount to a private account in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ASIA) Limited. 

The News Minute reported that company’s legal head in Bengaluru Abhishek Parsheera lodged a complaint with the Marathahalli Police on September 8 against Ashwani.

“On September 4, Ashwani Jhunjunwala approached his juniors on the pretext of training them and made them log into their computers. He then kept sending them out on errands to get water, food and such. During this time, in a matter of minutes, he used their computers to try and transfer the money belonging to the company into a private bank account," the Marathahalli Police was quoted TNM.

The police added that one of the juniors later found that there was money transferred to Synergy Wisdom Ltd's account in Hong Kong with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. The transaction, however, had failed and Rs 38 crore was reverted to Goldman Sachs.

Jhunjhunwala reportedly told the police that he had incurred debt of over Rs 50 lakh by playing online poker and had also taken private loans from people. 

He told the police that he tried to steal from the company to clear all these debts.