Gurugram: The deal was simple—open a firm in your name, sign blank cheques, and move cash around as directed in return for a fixed paycheck over and above your monthly salary. This is what Bhupinder Singh told the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Singh was personal assistant to former IDFC First Bank branch manager Ribhav Rishi, an accused in the fraud involving funds parked by Haryana government departments and Chandigarh civic bodies.
Similarly, the wife of Rishi’s driver told the central agency that she was unaware that she had been made a partner in Capco Fintech, the largest of the three firms allegedly floated by Rishi to move the money around.
The ED laid out these accounts Monday before a special PMLA court in Panchkula, after which the court sent Rishi and his colleague Abhay Kumar, a relationship manager at the same branch who ran a parallel operation through his wife and brother-in-law, to ED custody for 10 days.
The ED also submitted before the special PMLA court that the extent of the fraud was larger than previously known: Rs 645.59 crore, and not Rs 570.82 crore. It also said that besides Haryana government departments and Chandigarh civic bodies, funds parked by two private schools in Panchkula were also siphoned.
The IDFC First Bank fraud came to the fore in February this year when an official in the Haryana government’s Development and Panchayats department sought to close its account and transfer the balance to another bank. What he found were massive discrepancies between the records and the actual balance.
Haryana’s Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau initially registered an FIR in the case but the state government transferred the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The ED, too, subsequently launched a parallel probe.
So far, 15 people, including government officials, have been arrested; four of the officials have been dismissed from service, and several others suspended. An account officer who was served a notice by the CBI to appear before it for questioning died after jumping from the 8th floor of the Haryana Civil Secretariat.
The IDFC First Bank said it had repaid Rs 557 crore to the concerned Haryana government departments, even as the investigation was still underway.
3 firms, 1 remote control
Government departments are required to park their funds in Fixed Deposit Receipts (FDRs). In this case, the FDRs were never created. Departments were shown forged FDR documents to keep them in the dark, while the actual money was routed through a web of shell firms and third parties.
The funds eventually came back as cash, collected from jewellers and others to whom the money had been digitally transferred, and distributed to individuals across Chandigarh, Mohali, and Panchkula.
Rishi worked at the Sector 32 branch from 21 April, 2023 to 5 August, 2025. During this period he set up three firms, none of which had any real offices or operations.
The first and largest, Capco Fintech Services, was floated in the names of his personal assistant Bhupinder Singh and Sapna, wife of his driver Hemraj.
The mobile numbers registered on Capco’s bank accounts, at both IDFC First Bank and Yes Bank, were Rishi’s own. According to the ED, this established that he alone operated and controlled these accounts. Capco received Rs 471.69 crore directly from government department accounts and from DC Model Senior Secondary School and DC Montessori School, both in Panchkula.
The second firm, RS Traders, was registered in Hemraj’s name. The driver told the ED that in September 2023, Rishi had taken his KYC documents on the pretext of buying an LIC policy for him. He admitted to having signed many blank cheques and RTGS forms on Rishi’s instructions.
RS Traders received Rs 43.80 crore and Rs 23.07 crore from Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojna Parishad (HSSPP), Rs 16.23 crore from Chandigarh Smart City Ltd, and Rs 4.5 crore from Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science and Technology Promotion SocietyN (CREST).
The third firm, SRR Planning Gurus, was incorporated in July 2024 with Rishi’s mother Kamlesh Kumari and chartered accountant Ankur Sharma as directors, and an office address in Chandigarh’s Phase-2 industrial area. It received Rs 55.33 crore.
Ankur Sharma’s wife told investigators that Rishi controlled this firm’s transactions through her husband. Rishi and his wife Divya Arora personally received Rs 34.22 crore from the various shell firms, according to the ED.
What assistant, driver’s wife told ED
Bhupinder Singh told the ED that Rishi hired him as a personal assistant in October 2023, and promised him an additional fixed monthly payment if he agreed to open a firm in his name. Capco Fintech had no offices, not at its registered address, not elsewhere. Bhupinder’s role was to sign blank cheques and RTGS forms and hand them to Rishi, and to physically collect and deliver cash as directed.
Most of the money that landed in Capco’s accounts was transferred to jewellers, among them Sawan Jewellers, Malik Jewellers, and KLG Jewellers. Cash equivalent to those transfers was then collected back. Besides Bhupinder, those involved in the collection process were Rahul Kumar, Manish Kumar, Amritpal Singh, and Gurpreet Singh, all employees of Rishi. The cash was then distributed to individuals across Chandigarh, Mohali, and Panchkula.
Sapna, Hemraj’s wife, told the ED that Rishi had persuaded her husband to get an LIC policy in her name, and in that process obtained her KYC documents and photographs. She said she was unaware that she had been made a partner in Capco Fintech, and that she is illiterate.
Parallel operation & depts that lost money
Working at the same Sector 32 branch until 10 June, 2025, relationship manager Abhay Kumar ran a parallel operation through Swastik Desh Projects, a partnership firm in which his wife Swati Singla held a 75 percent stake and his brother-in-law Abhishek Singla the remaining 25 percent.
Swastik Desh Projects received Rs 203.50 crore from multiple Haryana departments: Rs 70.26 crore from the Haryana State Pollution Control Board; Rs 38.47 crore from Panchkula Municipal Corporation; Rs 31.04 crore from Haryana Grameen Vikas Nidhi Administration Board; Rs 27.46 crore from HSSPP; Rs 15.50 crore from Haryana Labour Welfare Board; Rs 10.39 crore from CREST; and Rs 9.93 crore from the HPGCL Employees Pension Fund Trust.
The money was then transferred to jewellers and other third parties, cash collected in return, and distributed across the tricity. Abhay Kumar, his wife, brother-in-law, and father Devinder Lal are alleged to have personally received Rs 11.22 crore.
The ED’s investigation so far has revealed that the Haryana State Pollution Control Board lost Rs 169.27 crore in total; CREST Rs 82.02 crore; Panchkula Municipal Corporation Rs 80 crore; Chandigarh Municipal Corporation Rs 73.50 crore; HSSPP Rs 53.86 crore; HPGCL Rs 50 crore; Haryana Labour Welfare Board Rs 50 crore; Haryana Grameen Vikas Nidhi Administration Board Rs 48.72 crore; Kalka Municipal Council Rs 18.10 crore; Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board Rs 10 crore; DC Model Senior Secondary School Rs 7.80 crore; DC Montessori School Rs 1.99 crore; and an additional HSPCB account Rs 32.80 lakh.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Also Read: IDFC FIRST Bank fraud is not a credit-quality story. It is about governance