Devil in Pinstripes

by Ravi Subramanian

‘Shanmuga . . .?’ Rajesh couldn’t connect.

  ‘We blacklisted him last week. He had made an incorrect declaration on the application form on behalf of the customer. The customer did not fill in certain fields in the application form and he filled it himself. We strictly prohibit sales agents from doing so. He is from an agency called Insta-Money.’

  ‘Oh, so we have declined him because the executive through whom this case came in was a fraud.’ It was now clear to Rajesh.

  ‘Yes sir,’ Sharada nodded. ‘That’s the normal process. If we sack a sales executive for fraud, we decline all the other applications which have come in through him and are in the pipeline. We assume that if the sales executive is caught indulging in a fraudulent practice, the likelihood of all other applications which he has brought in being frauds is very high. That’s standard operating procedure. Do you want us to over ride that and process his application?’

  ‘No, don’t do that. Let me talk to him.’ He walked up to the customer and introduced himself.

  ‘Sir, we have a small problem with the agency that your loan came through. Shanmuga, the sales executive through whom you have applied for this loan does not work with us any longer. We need a little more time to do the various verifications that we normally do. Can we get back to you sometime early next week?’

  ‘Shanmuga? Who is Shanmuga?’

  ‘The same sales guy through whom you applied for the loan.’

  ‘I don’t know any Shanmuga. I had walked directly into your branch to apply for a loan.’ By this time, Rajesh’s demeanour had cooled down the customer. ‘You do your checks and verification. I will come back next week. Or you call me when you are through. But it is not good to harass a customer who has left all his work and come to your branch.’ And he walked out of the branch.

  ‘Maybe there is some mistake. Do all the verifications. Send the documents for fraud check. If it is clean, do the loan. He seems to be a nice guy.’ He smiled at Sharada, gave her an affectionate look and walked away. Sharada also seemed to like talking to him.

  The next day at around five in the evening, Rajesh’s mobile rang. Rajesh picked it up almost instantaneously. Sharada’s call was always special to him.

  ‘Rajesh, the customer’s fraud check reports have come in. All clear.’

  ‘Hmm . . .’

  ‘All his documentation is fine. We can go ahead and do this loan.’

  ‘Go ahead. I am fine with it. Do this loan. Life is all about taking risks and I am happy to do it in this case.’

  ‘Do you have some time? There is something else I wanted to speak to you about.’

  ‘Go ahead. I have all the time for you.’ And he smiled, clumsy flirt he was.

  ‘There are three other customers who walked in today. We had earlier declined their loans. They all seemed to be of a decent profile, except that they are also applications sourced by Shanmuga. Should we go ahead and put them through fraud check before we process their loans too.’

  ‘Four in two days. Seems high. Any other observations?’

  ‘Like yesterday’s customer, they too said that they don’t know Shanmuga. Actually that’s what all of them say, when cornered. Who knows . . . maybe Shanmuga himself has cautioned them and told them to say that they don’t know him.’

  ‘Did you specifically ask them how they applied?’

  ‘Yes I did. The ones who came in today said that they walked into the branch and filled in the application form. They claim that they didn’t come through any DSA.’

  ‘The same response that yesterday’s customer gave?’

  ‘Yes Rajesh.’ Then there was silence at the other end.

  ‘Rajesh . . . are you there?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Give me a minute.’ There was a brief silence at the other end. Sharada was wondering what was going on and was about to disconnect and call back when Rajesh reappeared on the call.

  ‘Hello’

  ‘Am there . . .’

  ‘OKAY. Tell me, are those customers still there or have they left?’

  ‘They left long back. I was slightly tied up. Couldn’t call you earlier. Tell me . . . you want to meet them. I can call them again if you give me some time.’

  ‘No no . . . you do have their phone numbers right? Obviously you will. What a stupid question?’

  ‘Ya.’

  ‘Call them right now and ask them for the date and the approximate time they came to the branch to apply for the loan.’

  ‘. . . and then?’

  ‘Do as I say. Call me once you find out . . .’ He had a plan which he did not want to reveal.

  ‘Okay . . .’ there was very a confused voice at the other end before the phone disconnected.

  Within fifteen minutes Sharada called back. ‘I have the date and time of all four of them. Now what?’

  ‘Every branch must have an “In and Out” register, where every walk-in customer is tracked. Their time of entry and time of exit must have been noted down. Go to the security desk at the reception and from the “In and Out” register there, check if the date and time matches. Find out if there is an entry in the names of the customers, on the mentioned date around the time these customers stated. If there is, they are not lying. They have indeed come to the branch on the mentioned day. If there isn’t, then they haven’t come into our branches and are just fibbing to get their applications through.’

  ‘Okay. I am walking towards the security. Hold on. I will tell you right away.’ And she started walking. The main door was a few metres away and the security desk with the “In and Out” register was right there.

  ‘Register dena,’ she whispered to the security guard and took the register from him. While on the phone, she took the register from the security guard and started flipping through. It had the entry and exit times of every single customer who walked into NFS. After a couple of minutes of flipping through, she muttered a ‘thank you’ that was obviously for the security guard.

  ‘You are right. All the names are there.’

  ‘That means someone is screwing around.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Pardon my language . . .’

  ‘We are used to it. We have been mentally conditioned to ignore uncomfortable talk and unparliamentarily language. It’s okay.’

  ‘Someone has been swindling the system. We need to get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘Should I call Jugs and tell him?’

  ‘No. Let me come there tomorrow. We will figure out what to do. Please do not speak to anyone on this.’

  That night Amit called Rajesh. Normally Amit spoke with his key guys at least once a day. During the course of the discussion, Rajesh mentioned the happenings to Amit.

  ‘I know what this is.’ Amit’s sales background made it simple for him to comprehend what was going on. He went on to tell Rajesh what he should be doing about it.

  ‘Just be careful. Don’t let people know till you are sure. Update me tomorrow.’

  Rajesh was in the T-Nagar branch the next morning. Sharada too was there. In fact Rajesh had text messaged her to come in early. He went through the application forms and the supporting documents of all the four customers. All of them seemed to be perfectly in order. He saw the fraud check reports. They were perfect. He even saw the gate register with the security guards. The customers were not at fault. They had in fact come in on their own and put in their applications.

  ‘All these customers had been allocated to Reuben.’ When Sharada said this Rajesh’s eyes lit up. There was the answer. ‘He is the culprit!’ exclaimed Rajesh. He seemed like an amateur detective who had just solved his first murder mystery.

  Reuben was the customer service executive who had been working in the branch for over three years. He was one of the first employees to be recruited and a trusted one too. Rajesh was quite flabbergasted at the very thought that this guy could be involved.

  At around 9.15 a.m. Reuben came into the branch. He was quietly whisked away into the conference room by Rajesh. Sharada stay
ed out of this. She was too junior to be involved directly.

  Getting Reuben to confess was not too difficult. Rajesh confronted him with the facts and also threatened to bring the customers face to face with Reuben. The rest was easy. Reuben quickly realised that his game was over. ‘I just passed on the lead to the DSA because it would have been easy from the customer’s perspective. If a DSA follows up on a case, the customer is saved all the trouble. He doesn’t need to run around. Had he given us the application to process, he would have had to run around himself. Now the DSA would do everything for him and help him get his loan approved.’

  At that instant, Jugs walked in languorously into the conference room. ‘What’s happening?’

  Rajesh told him the entire story. Not surprisingly, Jugs was extremely dismissive and said, ‘Okay, leave this to me. I will manage.’

  ‘But you know this is a fraud, don’t you?’

  ‘I will figure that out. You have no right to speak to my team without MY permission. I said, leave it to me.’ Being one of Gowri’s cronies, becoming an arrogant bastard didn’t need too much of an effort.

  Rajesh did not have a choice and he left. Jugs was right. Reuben reported to Jugs and protocol demanded that he should have spoken to Jugs before he questioned Reuben.

  Once out of the conference room, Rajesh called Amit and spoke to him about the incident. ‘It’s fine. Let’s find out more about this. Get someone to call all customers who walked into the branch and were allocated to Reuben in the last three months and see if there is a trend.’

  Within three hours, Rajesh called back. ‘Amit, I mapped the names of customers who came in and were handled by Reuben in the last 90 days with the list of customers who applied for a loan and found that there is a 100% match in 344 cases. In other words, 344 applications have come in from customers who have walked in and met Reuben in the last 90 days.’

  ‘Wow. That’s a big number.’

  ‘And wait. You will fall off your chair when you hear this. All of them have been logged in as applications which have been sourced by Shanmuga of Insta-Money.’

  ‘OKAY. Interesting.’

  ‘And out of this, 238 applications have been approved and loans disbursed.’

  ‘Any idea about how much we pay the DSA for every loan?’

  ‘It works out to approximately Rs 5000–6000 per loan.’

  ‘In other words we have paid approximately Rs 5000 for each of the 238 loans, to Insta-Money for loans which they had no role in sourcing. Wow. 15 lakh paid to the DSA, Insta-Money, without them having to do anything. This is nonsense. Someone has to pay with his job. Ridiculous!’ Amit was screaming now. He was passionate about his job.

  ‘Yes it is Amit.’

  ‘I will send a note to Jugs asking you to investigate this. I don’t care if anyone wants you to lay off. You will not.’ Jugs had just managed to stoke the fire. Amit was seething with rage and that came out very clearly in his tone.

  ‘OKAY Amit,’ said Rajesh trying to counter-balance Amit’s mercurial temper with his calm tone.

  In the meantime, Jugs being the whiner that he was, had run cribbing to Gowri about it and Gowri came charging into Amit’s room just like a bull that had just seen red!

  ‘You have asked your bloke to investigate Reuben?’

  ‘Yes,’ came the calm and half-mocking reply.

  ‘Don’t you think any investigation against staff needs my approval?’

  ‘Not in the case of a process fraud. Only if staff integrity is concerned I need your approval. In this case I was interrogating him for what looked like a DSA fraud.’ It was a technicality, but Gowri couldn’t do anything.

  ‘I want you to stop this investigation right now. I will ask Sangeeta to do it.’

  ‘She can join in if she wants. Rajesh will be leading this for me,’ he said with a straight face.

  ‘I will ask her to speak to you,’ said Gowri in a dramatic whisper that was meant to be screamed and went away in a huff. He hardly spoke with Amit. The tension had not died down yet. Whenever they crossed paths, every minute seemed like Diwali with a vengeance!

  Rajesh was in the thick of action again. Within hours, the interrogation of Reuben resumed. Things were crystal clear now. Reuben’s dirty doings were out in the open – it was not out of goodwill that he had passed on interested customers to Shanmuga. He was not too concerned about the fact that going through the DSA would make life easier for the customer. There was clearly a personal consideration involved. The money paid to the DSA had clearly made its way back into the hands of people in the bank. Who was it? Was it only Reuben or were any others involved? These were the questions for which they needed answers.

  As the interrogation progressed, they decided to bring in Shanmuga. Rajesh called him on his mobile, summoned him to the office and Shanmuga didn’t seem to have any reservations. Normally if you are sacked for fraud, you would hesitate going to the same organisation again. Not Shanmuga. Something in the conversation told Rajesh that Shanmuga was being made a scapegoat. The latter was in the same neighbourhood and agreed to come in straightaway. This biased Rajesh who after the conversation sensed that Shanmuga could be innocent.

  Within the next sixty minutes, Shanmuga strode confidently into the T-Nagar branch of NFS.

  Again like the four customers who came in earlier, Shanmuga didn’t look like a fraud. He seemed to be a nice and honest guy. A typical Tam-brahm. If he wasn’t, why would he come in within sixty minutes, especially considering the fact that he had been sacked a week ago. He could have shown them the finger and stayed away.

  When confronted with the facts Shanmuga had only one thing to say – ‘Look, I don’t know any of these customers. I haven’t met any of them. Ten days ago, Sharmila called me.’

  ‘Sharmila. Who is Sharmila?’ asked Rajesh.

  ‘She is a credit officer here,’ said Sharada and almost instantaneously Shanmuga also echoed, ‘she is a loan approving officer with you.’ Rajesh could be pardoned for not knowing any credit officer in the branch apart from Sharada.

  ‘Oh. OKAY.’

  ‘Sharmila had called me for some information on one of the customers who she said that I had sourced. I was surprised . . . because I had no idea who this customer was. I hadn’t put in these applications. I told her that and even came to your office and met her. On asking her for a list of customers against my name, she printed out a list of twenty-six customers whose applications were in process and I was baffled to see the list. Only four of them were applications that I had logged in. I had absolutely no clue about the others. Maybe it was a data entry error. I asked a few other sales executives in my team and no one knew these customers.’

  ‘So someone else is logging in files in your name. Why would they?’ asked Rajesh.

  ‘Sir, if they are against my name, tell me, shouldn’t I at least get incentives for them?’

  ‘You should,’ Rajesh nodded in acceptance.

  ‘So I went back and asked Murugan . . . ’

  ‘Who’s Murugan?’ Rajesh interrupted, his eyebrows knitting together to form a curling V.

  ‘Murugan is the proprietor of Insta-Money. He didn’t entertain me and refused to pay me any incentive for those loans. I let it be because in any case those were not my cases. However, during my next visit to NFS T-Nagar to login some other applications, I met Jugs sir. I thought I would try my luck and ask him.’

  ‘Did he help you?’

  ‘Not at all. When I told him the story and asked him to speak with Murugan, he got so furious . . . so furious that I really got scared.’

  ‘Why, what did he say?’

  ‘He said, “why should we pay you for customers who are walking into the branch” and walked away without holding any further conversation.’

  ‘What did he say? What did he say?’ Rajesh suddenly got interested.

  ‘He said, “Why should we pay you for customers who are walking into the branch?” And the next thing I know is that I have been terminated. I
didn’t know what to do. I’ve not even got my salary. Please help me.’ Shanmugan looked genuinely distressed. His panda eyes showed thin red veins and revealed nights spent without sleep.

  Rajesh was shocked. He was recording the entire conversation in the audio recorder of his cell phone. Once the conversation was through, he downloaded the conversation on his PC and sent the audio file as an attachment to Amit. Amit heard the entire conversation. He wasted no time and called Jugs immediately.

  ‘Jugs, what’s going on in Chennai?’

  ‘Means what?’ Jugs was arrogant.

  ‘What’s going on in Insta-Money?’

  ‘He is a DSA. Why? What’s the problem?’

  ‘Don’t be so naïve.’

  ‘You paid him 15 lakh of excess payout in the last few months . . . that too for loans he didn’t even source. What’s your cut?’

  ‘You are insinuating that I am hand-in-glove with the DSA? Are you suspecting my integrity? I don’t think I should be talking to you, if you don’t have any respect for people who have worked in this organisation for over a decade.’

  ‘Fuck off! Tell me the truth, you scoundrel, before I make life miserable for you.’

  ‘I am sorry. I refuse to carry on this conversation. If you have an issue, please speak with Gowri.’ Saying that, he banged the phone leaving Amit fuming.

  By the time Amit walked into Gowri’s office, Gowri had been sufficiently briefed on this conversation by Jugs. Gowri looked at him, a smirk on his face. ‘What’s your problem man?’

  ‘Oh good. So I don’t need to repeat the story. Great. Now hear this.’ And he played the conversation with Shanmuga. Amit was carrying his own laptop with him and so it was easy for him to play the recording of the conversation Rajesh had with the sales executive.

  ‘What’s there in it to get so excited about?’

  ‘I will tell you. I never mentioned to Shanmuga that these were customers who walked in on their own. So he had no way of knowing that these were customers who walked into the bank. The incentive payout made to Shanmuga which we control, has been checked. Sharada has got the entire incentive payout details verified. Shanmuga has not been paid incentive for these loans. Which proves beyond doubt that these are not customers whose applications were brought in by Shanmuga.’