Noida Hospital Former employee, associate arrested for Rs 9 crore Health Scheme Fraud

Noida: In a major cyber fraud case, a former employee of a Noida-based private hospital and his associate have been arrested for allegedly siphoning off Rs 9 crore from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) health scheme payments over the past two years. 

While the cybercrime branch police have managed to recover Rs 77.33 lakh, the efforts to trace the remaining amount are underway. The police have informed that there is a possibility of more arrests in connection with the case.  

The accused have been identified as Vaibhav Kumar and Ankur Tyagi. Both the accused used inside information and fake emails to carry out the fraud. The private hospital is part of a health scheme that allows MCD employees to receive cashless treatment. The hospital then sends bills directly to MCD for payment.

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The scam came to light when Govind Sharma, a representative of the private hospital, noticed a missing payment of Rs 74.90 lakh from MCD.On May 5, when he inquired, MCD officials informed him that the payment had already been processed. But the hospital never received the money. Further checking revealed that the payment had been sent to a different bank account.

Startled by this, Sharma checked the email records and found that MCD had received an official email from Kumar requesting a change in the hospital’s bank details, citing that the previous account was not functional due to a technical error. Therefore, the money was transferred into three new bank accounts. 

Following this, Sharma filed a complaint against the duo on June 22, with the Cybercrime Branch police alleging that Vaibhav Kumar changed the registered bank account number of the private hospital with the MCD and diverted Rs 74.90 lakh into different bank accounts.

Subsequently, the police registered a case of criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery, and tampering of electronic documents of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the IT Act. 

During the investigation, the police found out that the two accused had been diverting money to different bank accounts for two years, and the amount that they successfully managed to dupe is Rs 9 crore. 

Manisha Singh, additional deputy commissioner of Cybercrime Branch, told HT, “During the investigation, it came to light that Kumar was earlier employed at a private hospital in Karkardooma, where he came in contact with Tyagi, a partner at a hospital, and a man identified as Vijay. When Kumar joined Sector 12 hospital, they advised him to divert the MCD payments (meant for Sector 12 hospital) to different bank accounts.”

“The bills, which were later cleared by the MCD in bulk, were being misappropriated in the last three years. As of now, Rs 77,330 has been recovered while efforts are underway to recover more money,” said ADCP Singh. 

They are currently investigating the involvement of all employees linked to the transferring and receipt of money at the hospital.

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