Under fair words, beware of fraud - Part 3- Fraud Revealed

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For Part 2, click here

Now, management decided to verify the situation by doing an audit of the regional office by a very senior lawyer of the company.  

After the audit, the lawyer confirmed to management, "Yes, there is fraud and shreds of evidence are pointing towards Mr. Rao. But I cannot know everything in an audit."

   

Top management asked him to register a police complaint. As per that, he registered a police complaint and left to head office. 

Now it was instructed to all that Rao sir will not be allowed to enter in office until police verification is done. But even after this, management had the opinion that it might be a trap by some of us. Hence, we all were under scanner. 

 On the other hand, Rao sir was telling all, that management only did this trap because he resigned. 

 After reporting a complaint in the police station, police immediately started their work. First, they came to the office and verified the outgoing details of the consignment. They got the vehicle number by which the consignment was sent. They also noticed that it was sent by a different vehicle rather than a regular dispatch vehicle. It was done by a logistic person by instructions from Madhav and Rao sir. Police immediately tracked the driver who had taken out the consignment. 

The driver explained that when he was going for delivery, Rao sir called him and told him that client had urgency hence they had sent their own vehicle for pickup of material. So he was asked to wait in the square nearby.  A vehicle came and a person from the vehicle told the driver that they would unload the vehicle, he should finish his lunch in that period as it was the time of lunch. The driver was happy because he was getting money without complete delivery.  He went home happily and came back after one hour to take back the vehicle.          

  Police went to the place where unloading was done from one vehicle to another. They searched the total area and they found that there were some small parts slippage from consignment in the nearby area. This was their second clue. They now got assurance that the vehicle was unloaded but not in another vehicle. But the material was moved to a nearby place manually. They verified some associates who do loading and unloading work in that area. And they got the place where they unloaded the consignment. But the place was empty when the police reached there. It was obvious that material was moved from there.  The police constable approached us in the office. They said to arrange a taxi for them as they didn't want to go by police vehicle for tracking material delivery location. We arranged the vehicle.  It was Saturday. They called us in the evening and told us that consignment was sold out by Rao sir to some dealers in Mumbai. They have arrested Rao sir and dealers. Until now Police had done verification only on basis of the written complaint. But FIR was not registered. Now they wanted us to register the FIR. Suyash and I were not happy with this decision. We told that our senior management would come and would register FIR. Our management informed us that they would send a lawyer on Monday for FIR.                 

  

      Police got very upset because of this, as they could not hold arrests without FIR. They released all the accused. 

 

 On Monday, FIR was registered.

  

 Now, the police asked us to start with sending all our staff and associates for statements one by one. Everybody was afraid as no one had ever been to the police station before. 

 Being seniors, we had now dual responsibilities. One due to the absence of a manager, his responsibilities, and another handling police case and their demands.  

Now, police had completed statements of almost all associates and staff in the office and warehouse. Suyash also had completed his statement to the police. And now I was giving my statement.  

Suddenly, I heard that he was shouting at me because I was in my own thoughts during the statement. 

I completed my statement. Now, senior management also called for the statement. Two senior managers came from head office. They were also afraid of and looking at us with hope and thought in mind, “Is there any way to avoid it?” 

But they were known that there was no option. If it was an office job, they would have not given us a single option and would have canceled it. Looking at this situation, we were happy inside as we had seen them always in aggressive mode with us. But now due to the situation, they were looking like poor sheep. They also had completed their statements. Mr. Rao was in custody and we never met him afterward. Looking at big fraud, the police had started their demands with us. Constable started asking small demands for the police station like Copy papers, desktop glass protector, tea, and breakfast for all in the Police station. 

Finally, we told management that we cannot monitor both clients and the police. Then a lawyer was appointed and we all were relieved from the terrific journey of distrust and doubts. On Mr. Rao's side, he also appointed a lawyer. But he had lost his job. He had purchased a flat on loan which was sealed by police. He had married three months ago.  I heard that his wife left him forever. Madhav, who helped Rao sir was declared innocent because he just followed instructions from his boss.  

 From this incident, I learned that listen to everything of your boss but use conscience to follow him.  

The End.

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