Scandal

India's Turn to be Rocked by a Swindler

Frauster sends detailed confession.

India, meet B. Ramalinga Raju, your own personal Bernard Madoff. The founder and chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd., one of India’s largest outsourcing IT firms, Raju has admitted to a staggering fraud that includes inflating the amount of cash on his company’s balance sheet by nearly $1 billion, overstating its profits for years and understating its liabilities. Raju admitted to the shocking scandal in a startlingly honest letter to his board and the Securities & Exchange Board of India. The scheme, he wrote, reached "simply unmanageable proportions," leaving him in a position "like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten." The sham, which sent Bombay’s stock exchanges down 7.3 percent, is already being called India’s Enron.