Two top techies held in Hyderabad.

Crime Investigation Department (CID) sleuths arrested two top employees of a multi-national software firm for committing a fraud involving crores of rupees. Cyber Crime cell sleuths of CID on Friday arrested Debendu Kumar Mistry, 32, technical head, and Soma Srikanth, business head of a citybased software firm with Rs 23 crore turnover. The company provides back-end applications to various mobile phone companies across the globe.

According to sources, while working in the parent company, the duo floated a separate company in the name of Eureka It Solutions. After launching the new company, they stole FTAM (File Transfer Application Management) application developed by their parent company and by showing it as the product of Eureka It Solutions, secured a purchase order from Erricson mobile to use it in their operations across north and northeastern India, a CID official said.

The accused made all the communication with the clients from the parent company's official email IDs. It was the sudden resignation of the technical head, Mistry, that raised doubts in the company CEO's mind. While quitting the company, Mistry returned his official laptop but only after fully formatting it.

However, the tech professionals managed to retrieve the data in the laptop and the fraud came to light. “The documents related to email communications with the clients including Erricson, details of all the applications developed by the company and even the proprietary, copyrighted details were found inside the laptop,” said an investigating official.

After gathering further evidence, the CEO of the company, lodged a complaint with the CID in the second week of February. After a detailed probe, sleuths found out the involvement of business head Soma Srikanth too. “The accused even used the design team of the parent company to create the logo for their new company,” a CID sleuth said.

Cases were registered against them under sections 66 r/w 43 A (b) of IT (amendment) Act 2008, section 408 (criminal breach of trust) of the IPC and section 63 B of the Copy Right Act. They were produced before the court and remanded in judicial custody on Friday.