NEW DELHI , India ( CNN ) -- The chief financial officer of India 's Satyam Computer Services Ltd. was arrested Saturday , the third person taken into custody in a scandal that began when the company 's chairman admitted inflating profits with `` fictitious '' assets and non-existent cash . Satyam founder B. Ramalinga Raju is shown Saturday being sent to prison in Hyderabad . Vadlamani Srinivas will appear Sunday before a special court , said A. Sivanarayana , additional director general of police in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh , told CNN . Company founder B. Ramalinga Raju and his brother , Rama Raju , Satyam 's managing director , were arrested Friday in connection with the scandal . In a letter written to investigators , B. Ramalinga Raju admitted that he and his brother were responsible for cooking the books at Satyam , according to CNN 's sister network , CNN-IBN . Satyam , India 's fourth-largest software-services provider , serves almost 700 companies , including 185 Fortune 500 companies , and generates more than half its revenues from the United States . It employs some 53,000 people and operates in 65 countries . B. Ramalinga Raju resigned Wednesday and confessed to padding company balance sheets . The practice began several years ago to close `` a marginal gap '' between actual operating profit and one reflected in the company 's accounting books , he said , but continued for several years . `` It was like riding a tiger , not knowing how to get off without being eaten , '' B. Ramalinga Raju said in a letter to the company 's board of directors . He said no board member was aware of what he was doing and he did not profit from the inflated accounts . The deception came to light after he tried to plug the hole by getting Satyam to buy his son 's construction companies . The acquisition was `` the last attempt to fill the fictitious assets with real ones , '' he wrote in his letter . The deal would have cost Satyam $ 1.6 billion -- but the company 's board vetoed it . Stocks fell following the botched deal . Soon afterward , B. Ramalinga Raju came clean , saying he was doing so `` with deep regret , and tremendous burden that I am carrying on my conscience . '' After his confession , stocks of the Hyderabad-based company fell more than 70 percent , causing India 's major stock index , the BSE SENSEX , to fall 7.3 percent Wednesday . The BSE SENSEX on Thursday deleted Satyam Computer Services from its indices . The company 's interim chief executive officer said Thursday the company 's immediate goal is to continue its operations uninterrupted . CNN 's Bharati Naik and Harmeet Singh contributed to this report .
Satyam 's chief financial officer arrested in profit-fraud scandal . Score: 6 Chairman B. Ramalinga Raju said balance-sheet padding began years ago .