Employee swindles Focuz Computers of Rs 12 lakh

Chennai : 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, Branch Incharge of Focuz
Computers Calicut/Kozhikode branch 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 issuing
invoices/receipts to small time computer dealers and customers, forging stock
statements, cash rolling etc. He was basically violating all the policies set by
the company," 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.

Pillai agreed that the company officials had relied too much on Thomas and
hence had overlooked the payments and other account procedures. "Thomas has
forged many transactions in our system, which could not be detected in the
routine audit. 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. "You can't get continuous
serial cheque numbers from different customers. 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 lead a luxurious life which, according to Pillai, was financed by his
fraudulent activities. He 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 before he could make
any smart moves," 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.