₹6.41 Crore Drawn for 'Ghost' Personnel: How a Data Migration Blew the Lid Off Mumbai Police's Payroll Scam

A financial scandal involving ₹6.41 crore in bogus salary payouts has rocked the Mumbai Police Department after an internal digital transition exposed ten non-existent "ghost" employees on the force’s official payroll. What began as a routine administrative migration of employee records into an updated digital system quickly morphed into a high-stakes investigation, unearthing years of systematic fraudulent withdrawals credited to fictitious police personnel.

Digital Migration Unmasks Fictitious Officers

The massive discrepancy came to light during an ongoing exercise to streamline government employee records and integrate payroll systems across Maharashtra’s state machinery. As officials transferred service books, permanent account details, and salary disbursements into the upgraded database, automated cross-verification flags immediately alerted system auditors.

Further scrutiny revealed that monthly salaries, allowances, and back-dated arrears had been regularly drawn and processed for ten individuals who either never existed or had long left the department. Despite having no active postings, duty rosters, or biometric signatures, these entries had remained active on paper, allowing multi-million rupee sums to be quietly siphoned off over an extended period.

Modus Operandi: How Millions Were Siphoned Off

Preliminary findings indicate a well-orchestrated inside job within the administrative and disbursing wings of the police establishment. The perpetrators exploited legacy paper-based record gaps and loopholes in older digital portals to keep the ghost profiles active.

By fabricating salary slips and inserting fraudulent bank account details attached to these dummy profile names, the syndicate ensured that monthly state treasury payouts were diverted directly into private accounts. Because the transactions were split across regular monthly cycles alongside thousands of legitimate personnel payouts, the incremental drain of public funds went unnoticed during routine superficial audits.

Strict Scrutiny and Departmental Action

Senior officials at the Mumbai Police headquarters have ordered a comprehensive forensic audit of all historical payroll logs spanning the past several years. Investigators are currently tracing the paper trail to identify the primary bank account holders, administrative clerk networks, and sanctioning officers who cleared these bogus salary bills.

The department is preparing to register formal criminal charges under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust, and falsification of accounts. Authorities have also initiated steps to freeze the suspicious recipient accounts in an effort to recover the embezzled public money, while internal oversight mechanisms across all administrative zones in the state are undergoing immediate security reviews.