The Story of India’s Satyam Computers Man: Lies Unlimited

BANGALORE, India—He was cooking the company books with a generous dash of lies, and the figures looked and smelt very attractive. The portion of lies, however, was getting larger and larger every year. It went on for seven years, garnering several awards for the cook and company along the way.

The lies, however, became too ‘fat’ to hide at the end of the third quarter of the seventh year. The monster of untruth had turned into a one billion dollar fraud—the first mega-scam of India’s IT space, with global impact to boot. Left with no choice, the cook, B Ramalinga Raju, who happened to be the CEO and co-founding chairman of Satyam Computers Services Ltd, decided to tell the truth—or rather, the untruth. MORE...