Once normal Now criminal- A Short Story (I wish was true)

THE VILLAIN: Neeraj Rosebern- The CEO of TRANS-CONTINENTAL BANK - Regional HQ, Seattle . A rising star with a penchant for opportunism. His favorite motivational quote was: "I am paying the best lawyers so you can screw over everyone else." He nurtured a team of very clever finance professionals who excelled at framing agreements which all but defrauded their clients of all wealth, couched under innocuous terms.

THE VICTIMS:
1- Adhir Raj - A meticulous no-nonsense finance professional who was recently transferred to Seattle via a promotion after seven years of service and was promptly fired by the Bank for insisting on reporting discrepancies in the quarterly reports which was put down without giving details as- intentionally corrupting indigenous processes of value addition.

2- Jake Masely - A tech wiz and a brilliant ex-student of the Orly Institute Of Tech Excellence. His father died of heart failure after TRANS-CONTINENTAL BANK aggressively pushed the sixty year old into bankruptcy. He lost his seat at the Institute and is now a jobless and homeless orphan. The bank even had first claim on the old man's life insurance. He was, till a day ago, the romantic interest of Saira Rosebern- Neeraj's eldest child.

THE TIPPING POINT: Adhir was standing outside the bank's HQ still in shock at being denied severance pay and getting a legal notice to cease harassing the bank or any of it's employees. He saw the kid hurry to catch a word with Neeraj and being shoved away. When the kid doggedly stayed, tapping on the car windows to speak with Neeraj, Adhir saw the car start and lurch forward. The kid, off balance and still following, would have stumbled at the curb and fallen on to the road or into the car if Adhir had not caught hold of him.

DROWNING SORROWS IN BEER: They were very different, chalk and cheese. Adhir was a mature professional of Indian origin, Jake was a nineteen year old distraught kid. Adhir was feeling like a loser for being beaten by the system and the bank, Jake was angry at the injustice of it all- Neeraj's bank pushing his father to the brink and then Neeraj fixing his daughter's- Saira's- marriage with some millionaire brat. But Beer made it possible for them to talk and actually come up with an idea to foil the wedding and go home rich.

THE PROPS:

1. Winnie Chopra- A successful wedding planner who is indebted to TRANS-CONTINENTAL BANK.

2. The Willows- Luxurious serviced apartments which Winnie has rented a couple of times previously.

SETTING THE TRAP:

Neeraj along with his wife checked the quotations of the other three wedding planners on his tab while Winnie waited patiently, judiciously enjoying her black coffee. They had already gone through the online album on Winnies site and were impressed by the lavishness of the arrangements and the signed thank yous in her Client References section.

Neeraj finally put the tab down and spoke.

"Everything you have put in here." He tapped at the printed sheets of Winnie's proposal. "seems good. Only thing is that the Baraat ( a traditional wedding procession full of song, dance and gifts, by the groom's family ending at the venue of the wedding.) arrangements are too much. Not ..."

Winnie interrupted him. "Please excuse me. But if you can not have a Baraat in Seattle no Indian can. And believe me, that procession on the skyway will make headlines."

"A Baraat on the fifteenth floor?"

"That skyway, connecting the two towers is six hundred meters long and there is a long hallway at both ends. Its fabulous and you will be the first."

"The accomodation..."

"The Willows is pretty damn good. And the amount of time the wedding party will actually spend there is less than 24 hours in all. What we save here, we are spending on spectacular functions and the Wedding suite at the FW Regency and the next day feast at the stadium. And in my experience we need to separate the newly-weds from the party anyway."

THE CLIMAX:

A day before Saira's wedding the local police, on a tip off, raided The Willows and rounded up six Czech prostitutes along with seven clients- members of a wedding party, including the groom. They also called in Winnie Chopra, who had rented the whole building for three days along with the owners of the building. Winnie confessed that they had asked for "girls" to be brought but she claimed to have refused to do anything of the sort and was on her job- escorting the women of the wedding party to a function at the FW Regency when the police had called. The police found a card in one of the girl's purses which listed a website where they could be hired, since the transfer of money could not be linked to Winnie, she was released.

The bookings of the wedding had to be cancelled because the police refused to release the wedding party before setting them up in front of a judge. The Astt. Commissioner refused to co-operate with Mr.Rosenber as he was a victim of an ongoing campaign on social media for going out of his way favor rich citizens without due regard for law. Moreover there were rumors in the press that there were illegal immigrants among those arrested.

Winnie had received 85% of the amount- $1.2 Million and having not booked the skyway itself or made any substantial catering arrangements for the final days earned 700K.

Jake had spent a few thousand on setting up a temporary office from where Jake had upgraded Winnie's website with images from half a dozen high-end Indian weddings of the past few years. He used Adhir's password to get entry into the Bank's network and made his way around a few databases till he located the email of the CEO's Personal Assistant. He set up a routine maintainence of the office computers the following day and managed to retrieve backed up emails from the CEO's machine- among them the proposals of the other wedding planners. He also routed the payment to the Czech website for premium party arrangements for six people at the Willows.

Adhir and Jake had set up multiple social media accounts and had bought forty others and paid for a few hundred followers- all this to build pressure on the Astt. Commissioner to not budge under pressure. They also fed the press tit-bits regarding the arrest of the Indian wedding party.

Adhir had bought two strong looking safes programmed to open to a master key, other than the code set up by the user. These were set up in the master suits at the Willows. After the police had taken the groom into custody and the family members followed them to the local PD. Adhir went to The Willows and emptied the safes of cash and jewellery, total worth 400K.

EPILOGUE:

Jake and Saira are still together. Jake has managed to get back to college and plans to top the class since his share- 300K- allows him to study 24/7.

Winnie has paid off her loan and shifted to Miami with her share - 300K

The Czech girls were bailed out and given 5K each.

Neeraj is still trying to placate the groom's family.

An anonymous donation of 100K was made to the Basic Rights Foundation- a group of lawyers taking cases pro-bono.

Adhir set up a financial consultancy for people wanting to take bank loans and those wanting to refinance or facing problems.

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PICTURE CREDIT: www.progressive-charlestown.com/2015/06/corporate-crime-pays.html