Hyderabad: Ex-Amazon staffer held for pocketing Rs 3.22 crores meant for settlement dues

Hyderabad: The EOW (Economic Offences Wing) police of Cyberabad arrested a person for allegedly misappropriating funds, committing forgery and cheating in the guise of clearing settlement amounts of inactive and former employees of Amazon.

As much as Rs 3.22 crores meant for settling dues of 184 inactive/ex-employees Amazon employees were fraudulently diverted, the police said.

The accused has been identified as Mettu Venkateshwarlu, a former senior financial operational analyst in the payroll section at Amazon Development Centre, Nanakramguda in Gachibowli. The police have also named some of his accomplices as a party to the crime.

Settlement dues diverted to ‘friends and family’ accounts

Venkateshwarlu was responsible for processing and managing end-to-end payroll activities of Amazon’s employees including clearing settlement dues of inactive and former employees.

However, the police said that Venkateshwarlu and his accomplices diverted the settlement amounts to their bank accounts by creating forged e-mails and bank statements. They did this by identifying unclaimed pending outstanding payments.

Venkateshwarlu prepared working files of bank transfers in which they changed the bank account details of inactive and former employees and updated them with the bank account numbers of their ‘friends and relatives’.

In this way, they pocketed Rs 3.22 crores in 50 bank accounts from 2016 to 2023 in the guise of settling dues of 184 inactive/ex-employees Amazon employees, the police said.

A case has been registered under sections 403, 408, 420, 467, 468, 471, 477-A, 201 r/w 120-B IPC of PS EOW, Cyberabad.