The Locker Case

In August 2020, Jeet Thakur Sahai was called by his colleagues in the Financial Crime Unit to help solve a case at the Brijmohan & Fernandes Bank in Delhi. This happened at the Connaught Place Branch.

The lead investigator, Inspector Akbar Rizwan, and Jeet went to the bank’s branch and met the manager, Jaideep Bartarya, there. Jaideep mentioned that he kept 4 lakh rupees in his personal locker that had a 5 digit password and the previous night someone had stolen the money. The CCTV system was broken for the past 3 days and the security company was sending employees to fix it later in the week. The bank had a lot of security staff on a 24x7 basis, but they did not have CCTV for the past few days and someone took advantage of that.

Jeet: “Mr. Jaideep, did you change your password recently?”

Jaideep: ”I was supposed to change it today. When I opened my locker this morning the money was gone! Every 3 months we are supposed to change our passwords. My password was 33123 and no one except me knew it.”

Inspector Akbar: “It could be that someone hacked your email and found out.”

Jeet: “Yes, that is a possibility.”

Jaideep mentioned that 7 officers and 9 clerks reported to him at the bank. Inspector Akbar and his colleagues started interviewing all the staff one by one. Jeet also helped in the interviews.

When Jaideep tried to open the locker again to show Inspector Akbar and Jeet he could not open it. The password had been changed a few hours ago. Jaideep mentioned that 4 officers and 3 clerks had access to his office and had a spare key. Also, he was away from his office 15 minutes earlier in the morning so someone must have gone inside and changed the password. So, Inspector Akbar and Jeet interviewed these people again.

After a while Jeet mentioned he thinks he knows who stole the money but wanted to enter the password. Based on his conversations he thought one of the people had access to the office changed the password. The locker’s system was such that after 3 attempts, the system would lock out and then the security company would help to retrieve the password.

Jeet entered the first number: “77099.” It did not work.

He then entered the second number: “48219.” It did not work.

Finally, he enters the third number: “50916.” It worked.

When the password worked, Jeet, Jaideep and Inspector Akbar were relieved.

Jeet then told what he thought to Jaideep and Inspector Akbar. Then one of the clerks, Ratnesh Kachru, was called to the office. Jeet told Inspector Akbar that he firmly believes Ratnesh stole the money and probably someone helped him.

He explained that during the questioning, Ratnesh mentioned his height was 5 ft 9 in and that he came to Delhi from Gwalior in 2016. He said other things as well but Jeet kept this in mind as he had a hunch about Ratnesh. He was very confident in his answers so Jeet became suspicious of him. He used his height and part of the number in the new password so it was 50916.

Jeet was also suspicious of two other people and thought of numbers based on their answers but those numbers did not work. He felt most probably Ratnesh was the thief.

Upon further questioning by Inspector Akbar, Ratnesh mentioned he did steal the money and that one of the officers, Preeti Asthana, helped him as well. She was very good in her IT skills and had managed to hack Jaideep’s email and found out that his original password was 33123. Preeti told Ratnesh the password. He went to Jaideep’s office after Jaideep left the previous night. He opened the locker as he knew the password and took the money out. Then the next morning when Jaideep was away from his office for 15 minutes he went in and changed the password to a new one and left. He thought that when the police investigate that many people would be suspects, but they would not be able to catch him. Ratnesh mentioned the money was hidden in a bag beneath some other bags in Preeti’s cubicle. He knew that the police would be extensively searching the bank. Inspector Akbar mentioned that he would take the money to the police station and after some paperwork was filed, Jaideep could retrieve it after 2 days.

Inspector Akbar arrested Ratnesh and Preeti. A court case against them would commence in three weeks.

Jaideep thanked Inspector Akbar and Jeet for their help in solving this case. Inspector Akbar thanked Jeet for his help. Jeet told Inspector Akbar that he was glad to help out.

The following day Jeet returned to his office work with the Delhi Police’s Research Analysis Division.