However, he seems to have gone missing. Satyam's interim CEO Ram Mynampati held a press conference Thursday and according to the AP said he didn't know where Raju went after he resigned Wednesday morning.

The books of Satyam Computer Services Ltd, India's fourth-largest outsourcer, are a tissue of lies - and have been for years - made up out of whole cloth by the company's founder and chairman, Ramalinga Raju, and his younger brother, its managing director, Rama Raju.

Unable to keep the pretense going any longer, Raju resigned Wednesday and sent a four-and-a-half-page confession to the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and to Satyam's board, which has supposedly been in the dark all this time.

The letter was released to the Bombay Stock Exchange and Satyam's stock, which is also traded on the New York Stock Exchange, sank like a lead weight, down 78%.

The extent of the fraud has yet to be plumbed but Raju admitted in his confession that Satyam's cash on hand was inflated by a billion dollars and only amounts to $65 million, that revenues in the September quarter were inflated by 22% and its profits by 97%, and that its operating margin for that period was really 3%, not 24%.

Its liabilities are also understated, its debtor seriously overstated and its accrued interest income non-existent.

The company has apparently been running on fumes for the last couple of years, secretly financed by founders' shares and other loans reportedly totaling $250 million.

Ironically the word satyam means truth in Sanskrit.

It is feared the Enron-like scandal could impact investment in India and push corporations into reassessing their position on outsourcing. The governance and results of all Indian companies, particularly in the IT sector, are expected to come under scrutiny.

Satyam services a third of the Fortune 500 as well as the US government. Accounts include Citigroup, General Electric, Cisco, Nissan Motors, Sony, Qantas Airways, Caterpillar, General Motors and Nestle. It employs 53,000 people in 66 countries and competes with Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies and Wipro, all of which are now running for cover from the PR fallout while standing by to pick up Satyam's client refugees.

Raju's world started coming undone a few weeks ago when what amounted to a stockholder revolt that eviscerated the price of Satyam's price prevented him from buying two construction companies run by his sons whose assets might have plugged that gaping billion-dollar shortfall in Satyam's bank account.

Things came a cropper, he says, when lenders sold the shares he pledged the last two years to keep the company afloat because of margin triggers.

Satyam was already exposed on several governance fronts and the World Bank recently terminated its contract with the company basically declaring it an outlaw for the next eight years because of some mischief over what may have been bribes to bank employees.

Four members of the Satyam board resigned.

In his letter to the board, Raju writes, "What started as a marginal gap between actual operating profit and the one reflected in the books of accounts continued to grow over the years....Every attempt made to eliminate the gap failed....It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten."

Although Raju claims not to have benefited personally from cooking the books he was worried that admitting to poor performance would force a sale of the company in which he had very little stock left and expose the fraud. He started Satyam in 1987.

Finally, Raju bit the bullet and brought DSP Merrill Lynch in on December 27 to advise the company on its options including a possible sale.

According to BusinessWeek, suitors included HCL Technologies, Wipro, IBM, HP, Cognizant and Cap Gemini as well as private equity houses KKR and TPG. A rival valued Satyam at $2.6 billion-$3 billion the day before Raju's revelations, the book said. Now it's worth more like $500 million.

Merrill has already dropped the engagement like a hot potato.

Satyam's auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers said it is reviewing the content of Raju's letter. There will of course be questions of complicity. Raju's letter suggests the falsifications could go back eight years.

Supposedly the only other guy in on the scam was Raju's brother, who has also resigned.

Satyam's fiftysomething ex-chairman, a Harvard Business School grad, Davos regular and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of 2007, figures he's going to jail.

The closing line of his confession reads: "I am now prepared to subject myself to the laws of the land and face [the] consequences thereof."

However, he seems to have gone missing. Satyam's interim CEO Ram Mynampati held a press conference Thursday and according to the AP said he didn't know where Raju went after he resigned Wednesday morning.

See http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14831963 for a copy of his letter.