From ₹1,500 Salary to Key Conspirator: The Rise and Fall of Vikram Wadhwa

The Chandigarh Police Crime Branch arrested 52-year-old Vikram Wadhwa on Saturday, obtaining a five-day remand to further their investigation. Wadhwa is alleged to be the key conspirator in a ₹590-crore fraud involving Haryana government departments and ₹190-crore financial irregularities linked to the Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) and the Chandigarh Renewable Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society (CREST).

According to officials, Wadhwa was produced before the duty magistrate on Saturday evening and was sent to five-day police remand. During this period, the police will trace the complete money trail involving over 2,400 transactions.

Wadhwa, a Chandigarh-based hotelier and real estate developer who had been evading arrest since the scam surfaced on February 22, 2026, was intercepted at a hideout in Kharar, Mohali. A team led by crime branch inspector Satwinder Singh and EOW inspector Jaiveer Rana apprehended him after tracking his movements across the Tricity.

Moved to Tricity as Guesthouse Caretaker

Wadhwa, originally from Malout, moved to Chandigarh in the 1990s as a guesthouse caretaker on a ₹1,500 salary before building a real estate empire. Earlier during the investigation, the Chandigarh police had recovered a Range Rover allegedly belonging to Wadhwa from a site in Kansal. Over the years, he entered the real estate business and accumulated substantial assets, including residential properties in Sectors 33, 21, and 36 in Chandigarh and a farmhouse in New Chandigarh.

In his disclosure statement, Vikram Wadhwa claimed that he had known Rakesh Kumar Rishi, father of Ribhav Rishi, for several years. Rakesh introduced Wadhwa to his son, Ribhav Rishi. Wadhwa said he opened bank accounts for himself and his family with the IDFC First Bank following Ribhav Rishi’s advice. According to the statement, Wadhwa alleged that Ribhav Rishi told him that several government departments in Chandigarh and Haryana maintained accounts with the bank that held funds worth crores of rupees and that he personally monitored these accounts.

Ribhav Rishi allegedly proposed that he could arrange large sums of money from these government accounts for investment in real estate projects without charging interest. Wadhwa claimed that Ribhav Rishi suggested routing the funds through several companies controlled by him, including Capco Fintech Services, RS Traders, and Swastik Desh Projects. Wadhwa further claimed that the funds from government departments would first be transferred to the accounts of these companies and later moved to his accounts, which he would use to invest in real estate ventures.

He alleged that Ribhav Rishi assured him that reverse entries could be made into the government accounts whenever required and that he would manage the bank statements so that the transactions did not attract attention. Wadhwa also stated that, at Rishi’s instance, he had approached some government departments and persuaded them to shift their accounts to IDFC First Bank. Wadhwa told investigators that the arrangement began around 2023-24, after which funds allegedly linked to government bodies such as Chandigarh Smart City Limited, Chandigarh MC, and CREST were routed through these entities and eventually transferred to accounts linked to him, Ribhav Rishi, and others. Wadhwa claimed that the money was invested in residential and commercial real estate projects in Chandigarh, Mohali, Kharar, and nearby areas.

Govt Functionaries May Have Acted as Co-Conspirators: Police

Investigators said the alleged fraud had been ongoing since 2022. Officials suspect that some government functionaries may have acted as co-conspirators in the scheme, allegedly facilitating the diversion of funds in connivance with Wadhwa and others. In Chandigarh, the scam surfaced through two separate financial irregularities involving the Chandigarh MC and CREST accounts linked to IDFC First Bank. The first irregularity was detected when Chandigarh MC began consolidating funds after the closure of Chandigarh Smart City Limited (CSCL) in early 2026. During the transfer of surplus Smart City funds to the civic body, officials discovered that fixed deposit receipts (FDRs) worth about ₹116.84 crore shown in records did not exist in the bank’s system.

Embezzlement of Haryana Govt Funds

The investigation by the Haryana state vigilance and anti-corruption bureau (ACB) has found that ₹590 crore was embezzled from accounts of at least eight Haryana government departments, including the development and panchayats department and the Haryana State Pollution Control Board. The funds, meant to be parked as fixed deposits at IDFC First Bank’s Sector 32, Chandigarh, branch, were allegedly siphoned off through 12 compromised accounts. The bureau has already arrested 11 individuals in this connection, including bank employees Ribhav Rishi and Abhay Kumar, and a department superintendent, Naresh Kumar Bhuwani.

The Directorate of Enforcement (ED), which searched 19 locations across Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula, Gurgaon, and Bengaluru this week, has frozen over 90 bank accounts. During the searches, investigators uncovered a network of shell entities and businesses suspected of facilitating the diversion and layering of funds.