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After nearly two decades of investigation, the CBI on July 12 arrested a private firm’s former director accused of defrauding State Bank of India out of Rs 8 crore. The agency said it used advanced image search technology to arrest the accused as she had been living under an assumed identity.
The CBI identified the arrested accused as Mani M Sekhar, who was director of Indo Marks & BTC Home Products Private Limited.
The fraud case dates back to 2002-2005, when Bengaluru-based couple Ramanujam Muthuramalingam Sekhar and Mani M Shekhar allegedly cheated SBI’s overseas branch.
According to the CBI, they cheated Rs 8 crore through the misuse of non-fund based limits in the name of the company and its sister concerns.
In 2007, the CBI filed a chargesheet against Ramanujam and Mani. But as the couple failed to appear before the court despite several summonses, warrants were issued. In 2009, the court declared them proclaimed offenders. While there were no traces of the couple, the CBI also announced a Rs 50,000 cash reward. While other co-accused in the case were tried and either convicted or acquitted, the primary accused remained elusive.
The CBI said the couple had changed their identities totally: Ramanujam Shekhar lived under the assumed identity of Krishna Kumar Gupta, while Mani M Shekhar became Geetha Krishna Kumar Gupta. They allegedly changed every traceable detail – mobile numbers, email addresses, PAN, and all KYC information used prior to the 2007 chargesheet.
Tracing digital footprints
The case’s breakthrough came through modern investigative techniques. Acting on specific intelligence inputs, the CBI deployed advanced analytical capabilities of artificial intelligence-based image search tools to trace the fugitives’ digital footprints.
The image comparison and analysis technology proved decisive in identifying the couple living under assumed identities in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, the CBI said. “With photo matching levels of more than 90 per cent, the image search tools enabled accurate identification despite their assumed identities,” confirmed a CBI official, highlighting artificial intelligence.
CBI teams thus successfully traced the accused to Indore. However, the investigation revealed Ramanujam had died in 2008, just a year after being charge-sheeted and a year before being declared a proclaimed offender, while living under his assumed identity.
The CBI on Thursday produced Mani M Shekhar, now known as Geetha Krishna Kumar Gupta, before a Bengaluru court, which remanded her in judicial custody for trial proceedings that have been pending for over 15 years.
