Life of Doctors – Patients, Medicine and Beyond…

Dr Suresh Venkita, our Group Medical Director, a senior cardiologist and an avid writer, has yet again shared this lovely story from his desk.

Catch Me If You Can

He is looking for a thief. This is no ordinary thief; this is a very intelligent, imaginative and innovative person who has successfully executed elaborate thefts internationally yet evaded capture, time and again, across the globe and the country.

Who is this? Where does this person come from? No one was sure of the nationality of this elusive thief. This is perhaps a peripatetic thief with multiple nationalities. But there were leads that seemed to indicate a connection to Asia, particularly to India. In fact, all recent information pointed to this thief operating with impunity from India.

Meanwhile, the whole world seems to be this person’s oyster.

The file at Interpol did not read like a crime sheet. It was riveting, like a story well-crafted and played out on the world stage with panache and precision. The theft was executed without any violence, or damage to person or property. It was like a neat surgery, there was no blood, and no mess. Yes, the pain was there, to those who lost what they valued to the perpetrator of the crime.

He is now in charge of taking up that evolving storyand carrying it to its conclusion, and bring that highly profitable business to its closure, swiftly and completely. Curiously none of the victims wanted to press charges, for reasons best known to themselves, but they would appreciateat least some of their property being returned to them.

He is looking for a girl, who does not know he exists, or the story that has brought him here. He has no reasons to be discreet but still he has to be careful. He is standing near the doorway and surveying the golden banquet hall, which is filled with refined bodies in saris and jackets, and beautiful young women with straight hair who never make facial expressions. But they will, soon. Any moment now.

Time to let the cat out of the bag.

She had left her blackcat behind after the last heist. He has the cat with him now. He gently puts him on the ground. He also hangs around his neck a distinctive jewel that came from the store which was site of her last heist, certain that she will recognize it as coming from the loot that she missed out.

She is right in the middle of the gathering, beautiful and elegant, with straight hair and no facial expression, but looking composed, confident and commanding, her words compelling attention from some of the glitterati who have gathered around her. They are clearly in awe and admiration of her, mesmerised by her personality and her sweeping knowledge of international financial markets and accumulation of wealth which are respectively her favourite playfield and obsession. Her knowledge of precious stones is equally impressive.

Unerringly the cat walks towards her, undeterred by the crowd, snuggles around her high-heeled shoes and meows surprisingly loudly and happily. She looks down and picks the cat up. Everyone around her see the black cat with the glittering jewel round its neck. Facial expressions change around her; eye brows arch upwards and question marks form on faces, but nothing changes on her face.

She looks straight across the hall, directly at him as though she knows the exact source of the interruption. She does not bat an eye lid; she is cool and calculating.

Their eyes meet and a message flash essilently from him to her’’ Lady, the game is up’’.

She walks up to him and says quietly ‘’ We need to talk’’.

Now the story.

When her file reached him, economic crimes by women were new to him, so he began by researching about what instigated women to indulge in embezzlement and theft.

In 1975 Rutgers criminologist Freda Adler wrote a ground-breaking yet controversial book, Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal, that shed light on research analysing the criminality of women.

Pink-collar crime was unquestionably on the ascent. The term generally refers to the rise of women involved in white-collar crime, but it’s also a theory introduced by criminology professor Kathleen Daly during the 1980s to describe the types of economic crimes typically committed by females.

He learnt that vast majority of them take place for two primary reasons:

• They want to live a more lavish lifestyle than they can afford.
• They have a gambling addiction.

In fact, “true need” was the cause less than 2 percent of the time. There indeed was a ‘‘thrill ‘’ in ‘‘steal’’.

The only other significant reason was that some of them stole to start or support their own business.

In embezzlement most operators work alone, and three out of four hold a position in finance, book keeping or accounting. The most common method of stealused to be the issuance of forged or unauthorized company checks.

Unauthorized electronic transfers have since grown to become the most common method.

He was impressed to learn that women out numbered men by a considerable amount – two-thirds of embezzlers are women. Women in fact tend to be pretty savvy embezzlers.

He was now probably with one of the best in the business; most energetic, enterprising and successful.

The story about her began to build around 2010 when a ring of computer hackers, led by an Asian woman, stole an estimated £650 million from banks all over the world. Using malware and phishing to hack banks’ systems, they studied the operations and routines of the banks, even watching through webcams and CCTV systems, then transferred money through fake accounts. They even programmed ATMs to dispense cash at specific times. Never taking more than £80 million from a single target, the gang robbed as many as 100 banks in 30 countries. The members of the gang and the mastermind were never found.

Three women had visited Harry Winston’s exclusive jewellery store in Paris in the summer of 2012. Nobody in the store would divulge exactly how they were duped, but when they left, the store was left poorer by an estimated £85 million in diamonds. They did say that the threesome was led by a very elegant oriental woman with exotic eye lashes that were most expressive and eloquent.

From 2013 the international gang led by the mysterious woman surfaced in India and began to siphon off crores from major Indian banks by elaborate electronic transfers. The run lasted till 2016.

In 2017, a lady in a baseball cap, with a scarf fluttering over her face most of the time, holding a black cat, had walked into a private exhibition by the Leviev diamond house in the Carlton Hotel in Cannes and made off with possibly the greatest single jewellery theft of all time, estimated at £110 million. No one quite knew how it happened during the medley that was milling around. The famed film festival was on and Bollywood stars in brilliant saris had stolen the lime light from Versace, Balenciaga and Gucci. Many attractive and fascinating Asian women were around examining and exclaiming at the jewels.

During a private investigation it came to be known that the suspect lady had come to Cannes a few weeks earlier and had stayed at Four Seasons. She and her blackcat were inseparable. But she had left in a hurry and the cat got left behind.

An examination of DNA harvested from the skin scrapings found under the nails of the cat gave the first ever break to Interpol on their 7-year long search to find the possible identity of the international thief who loved both money and jewels with equal fervour, manipulating money in mega scale while helping herself to the magnificence of precious stones and metals.

But there was no name, face, form or resume to this person.

An elaborate effort began to recreate, from the scant facts and nebulous clues that were available, an image and a personality.

The DNA indicated the rootsto be Indian.

The uncanny feel for numbers and the equally discerning taste in diamonds pointed out possible antecedents from Gujarat, possibly Surat, and initial education in Indian business schools and environment.

The talent for operating in Europe with familiarity wastraced to exposureto European business schools- either Insead at Paris or Erasmus at Rotterdam.

The taste and hunger for money manipulation was most certainly acquired from investment banking experience at the U.S, at either Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley.

But, frustratingly, there was still no face, form and a name!

Nor there was any clue about the origin of the criminal mind.

That was the story which now required the next paragraphs to be written.

Cradling the cat in her arms, she murmurs to him:

“Catch me, if you can ‘’

“Come with me’’, he says. ‘’ Let metake you out, safe and quiet’’

‘‘But you are not alone’’. She adds “I see your boss behind you’’.

He turns, involuntarily, like a reflex.

Precisely at that moment the lights go off. A shaft of light rains on stage, focussing on the glamorous

Bollywood star who just enters the centre-stage, to a crescendo in music and to thunderous applause.

Even as he swiftly turns back to her, in a fraction of a second, he knows that she is gone!

He bendsdown to see the cat curling up around his legs.

The jewel is also gone.