The first thing I did, when I saw the infamous letter of B. Ramalinga Raju of Satyam Computers confessing to a $1.4bn fraud, was to compare the initials on the letter with his signature in the 2008 annual report. They did not tally even remotely. I was reminded of the paradox of the statement: “I always lie.”

Mr Raju claims he had inflated profits and cash while understating liabilities and became addicted to the lies to keep up with analysts’ expectations. While most of the media have taken the confession letter as containing the broad truth – after all, a voluntary disclosure of fraud cannot be so unbelievable – it clearly hides more than it re- veals. The only thing certain is that Mr Raju has made at least $1.4bn (€1bn, £919m) vanish from the once venerable software giant, India’s fourth largest. How, and with whose complicity, is not clear – though he claims in the letter that he was alone in this fraud.