A 31-year-old employee of Motilal Oswal Financial Services Limited has been booked for allegedly embezzling ₹1.58 crore from a senior citizen’s demat account by fraudulently altering key account credentials.
The accused, Gaurang Mandalia, was employed in the operations department of the firm and joined in May 2021. He worked on Quarterly Payment Settlements.
The fraud came to light when a senior citizen, who had opened a demat account with the firm in 2016, approached the company after discovering that her shares were no longer visible in her account.
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The account had been marked dormant in July 2023 due to inactivity. However, in August 2024, crucial contact details including the registered e-mail ID, bank account, and mobile number were illicitly modified.
An internal investigation launched by the firm revealed that Mandalia had likely forged the customer’s signature on the modification form to reactivate the dormant account.
Over a five-month period—from August 2024 to January 2025—he allegedly sold off shares from the account and siphoned the proceeds, totaling ₹1.58 crore, into his personal bank account.
Following the probe, the company’s legal manager lodged a complaint at the Dadar police station. Based on the findings, Mandalia was booked under the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, including Section 318(4) for cheating, Section 336(3) for forgery, Section 338 for forgery of valuable security or will, and Section 340(2) for using a forged document or electronic record as genuine.