Cochin-based retailer Focuz Computers lodged a complaint against one of its
branch heads and got him put behind bars for his fraudulent activities.
22-year-old Haby Thomas, alias Thomson was caught by Focuz Computers
officials and handed over to the police for misappropriating cheques and the
company accounts.
“He was involved in all sorts of fraudulent activities such as forging bank
pay-in slips in system software, selling products without issu-ing invoices
receipts to small time computer dealers and customers, forging stock statements,
cash rolling etc,” said Santosh Pillai, Business Manager, Focuz Computers. He
also informed that the accused had swindled around Rs 12.23 lakh by forging
payment records and misappropriating stocks.
Thomas was working with Focuz since October 2007 and started his fraudulent
activities from November 2007.
“He collected payments by cash and manipulated the records to show that the
customer had paid by cheque, which had been submitted for clearance.
He would replace the previous payments through fresh payments. At some point
in time the cheques didn't get cleared and so many payments weren't received,”
he claimed.
The management came to know about Thomas' activities when they tracked the
cheque numbers, which were in continuous series. “The cheques that were bouncing
were all in serial order and that struck us as odd. We started examining Thomas'
work and slowly came to know more about his activities,” Pillai said.
Thomas has allegedly swindled money from other individuals in Calicut as
well, because when he was caught, many people turned up at Focuz outlets to
reclaim their money.
“We came to know that Thomas had even been ousted from his own house by his
parents due to many such fraud and cheating incidents involving his friends and
former colleagues. All this while, he had been claiming that his father was in
US and mother in UK. We have asked his parents to compensate our losses but they
have refused even to listen. His father is ill and bed ridden while his mother
is a nurse,” Pillai shared.
Thomas kept vigilance on Focuz's management and kept track of all their moves
so that he would not be caught. “He was ready to abscond at any given point in
time as he was living in a rented accommodation and had no fixed liability at
Calicut. We caught him and handed him over to the police,” Pillai averred. Focuz
has lodged an FIR against the accused with East Nadakkavu Police Station at
Calicut. The investigations are in process to recover the swindled money from
Thomas. He had been remanded to police custody for 15 days.