Former Amazon employee held for misappropriation of funds

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| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Cyberabad Economic Offences Wing arrested a former Amazon India employee for misappropriation of funds, forgery and cheating in the guise of ‘clearing full and final settlement of due amounts of inactive/ex-employees’ of Amazon Development Centre (India).  

Mettu Venkateshwarlu, former senior financial pperational analyst-payroll in the company, was arrested following a complaint by Ankur Sharma, senior law enforcement response specialist in Amazon Development Centre (India) in Gachibowli.

As many as 203 such cases of misuse, diversion and misappropriation have been identified in which the accused fraudulently siphoned off ₹3.22 crore into 50 bank accounts of his accomplices between 2016 and 2023, depriving 184 ex-employees/inactive employees of their dues which continue to stand as a liability for the company. He abruptly resigned from his role on October 31, 2023 after which the issue was reported to the police on April 3.  

Venkateshwarlu was responsible for end-to-end payroll activities of Amazon India employees, including inactive and ex-employees, which included processing of full and final settlement of employees – both former or inactive employees.

“The accused used to identify certain unclaimed long pending outstanding payments and prepared working files of bank transfer. He replaced the bank account numbers to those of his accomplices and diverted crores of rupees into them,” the official explained.