Lt Col Vivek Gupta (Retd.) PCI, CFE, IIM-K Alumni, Associate Director (Forensic Investigations), Netrika Consulting
Ravi Balaraju had long stopped expecting peace in his dreams. When the world slipped into slumber, he stepped into a twisted theatre of the subconscious. Dreams didn’t come to him gently. They tore through him. Each night was a descent into a different kind of darkness. He’d seen himself crushed beneath concrete, burning inside a car, floating face-down in a black river. Some dreams were soaked in blood, others shrouded in silence, but all of them left behind something – a symbol, a deep desire to decipher their meaning, a scent of truth.
Fire and Flames
Fire and flames were rushing towards him in the long, dark corridor, and he had nowhere to escape. From the edge of the flames, Ravi saw one man screaming and running towards him, trying to escape the flames. A figure in dark clothes extended his hand for help to that man, but after holding his hand slipped the gold ring from his finger and walked away, chanting something, leaving both of them to flames.
Ravi woke up panting – not unusual for him.
Ravi saw that stack of files on his table, kept next to his bed, for the last few days. The bunch contained the financials and other related documents of the case that were handed over to him to dig into the truth. In those files lie the immaculately maintained books of accounts of the drug manufacturing company of Hyderabad, whose owner had recently died of a heart attack, leaving behind a shutdown of operations and an unemployed workforce. Although everything seemed ‘normal,’ for some investors, something wasn’t adding up, and so Ravi was hired.
By profession, Ravi was a forensic auditor; less of a kind who flipped dusty files and corrected decimal errors and more of a kind who ventures out into the unknown, leaving no stone unturned to get to the bottom of a case. He chased ghosts in numbers – embezzlements, corporate frauds, whistleblower allegations, and the dirty money exchanging hands through shell companies. He had once been part of an elite financial crime unit. Now, he works alone. A shadow in the system unburdened by process red tape and untouched by influence.
He never hushed away his nightmares but instead used them as inspirations for a creative solution to real-world problems, which many scientists, writers, and inventors credit with breakthroughs. They called him the Dream Auditor – half mockingly, half in awe.
Ravi reached out for the stack of files on his table, switching on the dim light of the table lamp in the corner at 3 AM after jolting out of his slumber. He flipped through it and stopped at the photo of the owner of the drug company, Mr Vijay, who resembled the man running towards him, trying to escape the flames, but who was the man in the dark clothes?
Ravi now knows – he had to look beyond the numbers in the books to find the truth. After the daybreak, he set out for the factory in Hyderabad that had lain abandoned since the death of its owner, Vijay.
No signs of fire anywhere, was it all wrong? But then the old guard spoke about the hawan that was done at the factory two days before the death of Vijay.
Who all attended? He searched the CCTV footage and realised it was the entire workforce, including the CEO Anil Agarwal, COO Kunal Awasthi, Head of HR, Admin & Security Col Krishnan, and CFO Anand Reddy at the hawan two days before Diwali. He could not identify a shabbily dressed, probably ill-mannered guy sitting close to Vijay and the CFO during the ritual. The kind of guy that a charismatic and dynamic founder-owner, Vijay, might never tolerate.
Strangely, the guy was identified as Ashok by the old guard, a distant cousin of Vijay’s wife who had complete and undisputed access to all the locations and matters of the company. He had unrestricted access to Vijay’s office and held no official designation.
More perplexing was the fact that the CFO, Anand, had left the company the same day after the ceremony with no paper formalities – the FNF, but with a mere unapproved email of resignation.
The Burial
Ravi saw himself buried alive, forced down by invisible hands while others pouring in papers – loads of it – over him. There are files and papers and books of accounts being slammed over him, suffocating him, punishing him. In desperation, he is trying to get out of this, but running out of time. He unsuccessfully tries to remove the papers over his face – some soaked in blood; he grabs a few – one of them reads – Noble Enterprise, another – a blood-soaked boarding pass and then his screams disappear under the load of papers.
Ravi wakes up gasping for air. This was a pretty straightforward nightmare, which didn’t require much interpretation. He has buried himself under the information overload, overlooking something – probably.
Ravi opened the files on his bedside table once again and flipped through them. ‘Noble Enterprise’ flashed through his eyes in one book entry as a vendor providing raw materials.
Next day, he went to its office location in the Hyderabad suburb only to find it was something non-existent at the given address. He did the same with some more and found some more such companies.
Non-existent importers supplying raw material to Vijay’s company for converting them into prescription drugs – how come? Is it the CFO? Or something more sinister?
The other guy – distant cousin of Vijay’s wife – it’s time to check on him. Ravi went on to meet some ex-employees of the company, most of whom had only superficial praises for Vijay and other top management guys like the COO, Kunal Awasthi and CEO Anil Agarwal. One ex-employee from the accounts department dropped a bomb, which Ravi was not expecting. The CFO, Mr Anand, always maintained some other Excel that was the actual records and the employees were told to do book entries as per his directions only – generating PO, Invoices, PI etc., strictly under his supervision. Raw material used to be received in the company generally during the early morning hours or late nights when only security used to be on duty.
The uneasy calm of a disorganised government office greeted Ravi when he went to the local Police Station. After several hours of waiting, he could finally meet the SHO Rao, who could have provided some leads into the drug manufacturer’s criminal activities – in case any, but he chose to deny any knowledge. On Ravi’s insistence, he got agitated, and to avoid confrontation, Ravi left.
Ravi knew what was up next for him. He set out to search for the company that was the logistics partner supplying raw material.
He felt some eyes watching when he roamed in the transport depots and truck pickup points of Hyderabad, inquiring. After several dead ends and cold shoulders, a truck mechanic told him to meet an old truck driver, Karim Anna, who lives nearby and has been in this field for over 40 years.
Karim finally broke his silence. “It’s a routine to steal the raw material from the trucks of other bulk drug manufacturers. Those yellow and green seals on the trucks are too easy to open and reseal – just a glass of hot water and a hammer are good enough for them. Everyone knows it, from the truck drivers to the Police. The tips are provided by the insiders in the bulk manufacturing factories, and the buyers are those who convert these bulk drugs into vials for retail sale. The truck drivers get their cuts, and so does the Police. It is organised by a few meticulously.”
“But, don’t these bulk manufacturers feel the pain?” inquired Ravi.
“They do, but if the losses are within the limit, they choose not to pursue and simply lodge the FIRs and claim the insurance. Cases are forgotten after a few months. Moreover, some are meant to look like robberies to avoid drivers’ scrutiny, while some are more smartly done by opening and resealing containers’ seals like the truck seals and disguising them as ‘short supply‘ rather than theft. These thefts don’t even reach the Police, and companies dust them away with internal inquiries,”clarified Karim.
“What about these organised gangs? Who are they?” inquired Ravi.
“Ponne ra,” muttered Karim in Telugu, then continued, “let it go. They are too big. This is just a small part of their business. They have illegal warehouses on the highways leading outside Hyderabad. They get all kinds of stuff from different manufacturers, suppliers and e-commerce companies, keep them and resell them – everyone knows that. While the drivers play innocent, the industry thrives on kickbacks and commissions and cheaper goods to end users,” said Karim.
It flashed through Ravi – an organised work to obtain cheap raw material and confuse the procurement trail with a mix of genuine purchases and stolen ones through a web of transactions routed through shell companies and overseas accounts. But who could do it for Vijay? Of course, someone very close – like a family, and the participation of the CFO is non-negotiable.
So why did the CFO leave – probably developed a conscience or to avoid scrutiny while moving ill-gotten gains to offshore accounts. But what about Vijay – was it a heart attack? May be or maybe not. The bond between people involved in a common crime is much stronger than any other bond of love and affection. Did he die because his accomplice ran away with the gains, or was he eliminated from the equation? Either way, Vijay was betrayed by one of his own, which cost him his life.
The Final Audit
Ravi felt at peace like Sherlock playing violin after solving a case. But he knew he had opened a can of worms which no one dared acknowledge, and his peace didn‘t last long.
Soon, the nightmares returned – faceless this time. He stood in a courtroom made of ice. No judge, no jury – Just mirrors reflecting every case he had ever solved.
The walls whispered, “Who will audit the auditor?”
He stood with a ledger stained with mud. Every page bore his name. The crimes? Unknown. The punishment? Certain. He ran on the ice, trying to escape and entered a room with a high ceiling. With white walls, no doors or windows – closed from all sides, nowhere to escape, he is now trapped inside this room. He woke up sweating. The shadows on the ceiling looked like hands reaching for him. He knew what it meant.
Someone was watching – someone powerful. This time, he has cracked one too many vaults; walked too many corridors with ghosts.
He emailed his archives – years of nightmares and numbers – to a mentee. She was smart, brave. She would see the patterns, and she would take it to the press. She would be the invisible force behind the justice.
The next morning, Ravi walked out of his flat for the last time. His neighbours said he looked calm, even peaceful. He was never seen again.
Key Takeaways
Advocates of ‘Dhanda aise hi hota hai – this is the way of the business,’ generally don’t know when to stop and even if they know when, they are not certain how to stop. Business owners and the Directors must understand the thin line between ethics in the long run versus the way of the business.
Long-term business plans can’t rely on high-risk propositions. Think clearly before venturing out.
Resilience in a business is an ongoing process. Keep an eye on changing situations and realign periodically.
Supply chains are fragile and the weakest link is the weakest lock. Insist that your logistic partner uses cameras inside closed body container trucks, irrespective of the type of seals being used.
Epilogue
When suddenly a path appears clearly in the maze without a whistle-blower, people whisper, “This must be the Dream Auditor.
His journals now lie with her, filled with mad scribbles, case links and symbols. Some who have read them know that:
Dreams are maps,
Madness can be a method, and
Sometimes nightmares are just another way of seeing what the world wants to hide.
All names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents (if applicable) are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This is a pure work of fiction for entertainment purpose only.
Author‘s Profile: Lt Col Vivek Gupta (Veteran), PCI, CFE, IIM-K alumni, is currently serving as Associate Director (Forensic Investigations) at Netrika Consulting. He has over 24 years of rich, cross-functional experience shaped by a distinguished tenure in Army Intelligence and corporate leadership. A results-driven professional, he thrives at the intersection of strategy, risk management, security, and compliance.
