Rajus siphoned off Rs 2,743 cr:CBI

Once we found this major trail,the next step was to find the authors of these invoices. It is here that we realised that the culprits were smart and were using computers which could not be tracked. We used the data in the office entry swipe machines and found a particular set of people used to come to office in the night only to generate the fictitious invoices. This was usually towards the end of the quarter or the month. The level of organised crime by key persons can be gauged from here, he added.

Covering areas like management information systems to manpower management,sales,cash and bank balances,role of statutory directors,to purchase of land and the floating of 327 front companies the CBIs first clinching evidence came after it used forensic accounting tools. The challenge in this probe,according to CBI,was to track the created accounting which Negi described as new to India,not essentially the west. With a core team of 25 officers and another 40 investigators the benchmark of 45 days to chargesheet has been done,he said,adding,There will be one more chargesheet in this case apart from the supplementary chargesheet that has already been filed. The agencies,including the Enforcement Directorate,are working on the properties that need to be attached. This includes those purchased with the proceeds of the crime. Under the criminal law ordinance Act,100 properties of Rs 3 crore have been mapped till date. The other aspect includes the land that has been purchased,spanning various states. The agency will now approach the courts in the respective states to reach a judicial conclusion on them.

This probe has been satisfying as for the investigating agencies in India,it did offer a lot of insight on various levels. The Satyam case is actually the big failure of corporate governance. We are sending a note to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India to ensure that they use the probe inputs and bring changes to their statutes, he said.

The company,incorporated in 1987 with 10 engineers working out of a rented apartment,transformed into a global giant,with its revenue crossing $2 billion in 2008 and a listing on the New York Stock Exchange. A shocking confession letter by chairman and founder B Ramalinga Raju sent on January 7,2009 changed all of that revelations like inflated balance sheet,overstated debtors at Rs 490 crore,and understated liabilities at Rs 1230 crore brought CBI to probe the companies actual financial standing.

How CBI clinched evidence based on forensic accounting

An invoice team generates invoices using an application which allows all invoices to be fed online and accessible to everyone in the business circle. Another option,coined Excel Porting essentially the manual mode of entering invoices could also be used only to meet emergency requirements. A purchase order from an actual customer is fed by the business relation manager,with the online system registering the execution process till the stage the entry ends as sales proceeds or debtor with a unique serial number for each bill. In this system,based on the business circle there were ranks with the bills tagged as S meaning show to all,and H meaning hidden to some. Except that in Satyam while generating fraudulent invoices they swapped the tags. 7,561 fake invoices valued at Rs 5,118 crore was found between the period 2003 and 2008. Another 6,631 false invoices into the receivables amounted to Rs 4766.20 crore. It was the discovery of this huge difference that came as the first lead.