Though there's little evidence that the fraud leaked over to Indian banks or hurt Satyam's customers, shareholders have watched the value of their investment all but disappear. And one Indian job website reported receiving 15,000 resumes from Satyam workers this week.
"Raju has cheated me and millions of shareholders," said Rajesh Shrivastava, 43, a businessman who owns 5,000 shares. "I still fail to believe that I have almost lost everything. The god of IT has failed me."
Those who have spent time with Raju describe him as a modest, thoughtful, seemingly honest man.
"All of us who know him are quite shocked," said Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, managing director of Bangalore-based Biocon, a biotech company. "I always thought I was such a good judge of character. Obviously I'm not."
In retrospect, Raju's story is rich with such ironies.
"Satyam" means "truth" in Sanskrit. And Raju's shelves groaned under the weight of honorary doctorate degrees and good-governance and creative entrepreneur awards.
But not everyone was impressed with the chief executive who loved science fiction, spicy Andhra Pradesh food and hiring people who could speak his native Telugu language.
"If you walk around Dalal Street, our equivalent of Wall Street, there's surprise but not shock," said Ramesh Damani, a member of the Bombay Stock Exchange.
"There was always a sense there was creative bookkeeping, although not necessarily fraud."
Traders speak of a smell test that left Satyam trading at lower price-to-earnings multiples, a measure of earnings potential, than other Indian IT giants in its class such as Infosys Technologies Ltd. The company seemed willing to give away far too much to reach a deal with brand-name global companies, said a lawyer involved in several deals with Raju.
The lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that in retrospect, Raju's way of doing business suggested that it was more important to announce impressive deals and prop up the stock price than it was to adhere to strict profit-and-loss benchmarks.
"Other firms had a clear bottom line," he said. "Satyam was willing to do deals at all costs."
But Raju, who got a business degree at Ohio University and was one of the first to see the business potential in the Y2K scare, still has some supporters.
