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2 Price Waterhouse employees arrested in India
Police in India arrest 2 Price Waterhouse employees in connection with Satyam fraud
Sunday January 25, 2009, 7:19 am EST

HYDERABAD, India (AP) -- Police in India have arrested two employees of Price Waterhouse, the auditors of the troubled Indian outsourcing giant Satyam Computer Services Ltd.

S. Gopalakrishnan and T. Srinivas of the auditing firm are being investigated for fraud and criminal breach of trust, senior police official A. Siva Narayana said late Saturday.

Satyam's founder and former chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju, confessed earlier this month to perpetrating a $1 billion fraud.

Price Waterhouse subsequently said its audit reports for the last eight years relied on potentially false data provided by Satyam and should be disregarded.

In a statement Saturday, Price Waterhouse said "we do not know the basis for them being detained. Over the last fortnight, the firm has fully cooperated in all inquiries and has provided the documents called for by the Indian authorities."

It added that Price Waterhouse shares the Indian government's desire to understand the "full extent" of the fraud and will continue to cooperate with authorities.

Price Waterhouse is part of the global PricewaterhouseCoopers International Ltd. network.

Satyam's Raju, his brother B. Rama Raju, former chief executive, and Srinivas Vadlamani, former chief financial officer were arrested earlier in the month.