Noida: A fast-track court denied bail to a man accused of receiving Rs 20 lakh in his bank account in connection with a cyber fraud case. The accused claimed he was unaware of the source of the money and argued that he was falsely implicated, but the court found the charges to be of a serious nature.Additional essions judge Satyendra Singh noted the applicant, Nagendra Kumar, was the prime accused in the case, where a woman was cheated and intimidated by a person posing as personnel from Mumbai’s anti-narcotics cell.
“The applicant is the main accused in the case, and Rs 20 lakh is alleged to have been received in his account. The case relates to cybercrime. The offence is of a serious nature. Therefore, considering the gravity of the offence and all the facts and circumstances, the grounds for bail are insufficient, and the bail application is liable to be dismissed,” the court said on Thursday.Kumar is facing charges under BNS sections 308 (2) (extortion), 318 (4) (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) and 319 (2) (impersonation to cheat) in an FIR registered at Noida cybercrime police station in Aug 2024.Complainant Manoj Kumar Dorai of Sector 82 claimed his wife, who works for a multinational company in Chennai, received a call on her mobile on Aug 21 that year, where the caller, posing as a Mumbai anti-narcotics cell officer, told her that they seized a parcel she was sending to one Shaik Rashid in Iran via FedEx International Courier Service’s East Andhari branch. The caller claimed the parcel contained 5.5 kg of MDMA, two expired Indian passports and three hard disks. She was also told that an FIR was filed against her by the Narcotics Bureau, Mumbai.The caller, Dorai claimed, threatened his wife with dire consequences and demanded money to drop the “criminal case”. She subsequently transferred Rs 20 lakh from her account to another, provided by the scammer.Police arrested Kumar, the owner of the account to which the complainant’s wife transferred the money, on May 6 this year. He subsequently moved a bail application.His counsel argued Kumar was falsely implicated and that no evidence linked him to the offence. “There is no independent public witness against the applicant. He did not induce or convince the plaintiff’s wife to deposit any amount into his bank account,” the counsel said. He added that no person intending to defraud another would ask the victim to transfer money directly into his own account. “If my client had intended to defraud the plaintiff’s wife, he would have withdrawn or transferred the proceeds immediately instead of leaving them in his account to be discovered by police,” the counsel said.The bail application was opposed by the assistant district govt counsel, who told the court the case was part of a larger conspiracy and that an investigation was ongoing. After hearing both sides, the court noted that while there was no direct evidence of inducement, the charges against Kumar were serious. “A thorough investigation without interference with witnesses was necessary,” the court said.According to police, mule accounts are often used by cybercriminals to move illegally obtained money and make tracing difficult. Officials said investigations into similar cases in the city led them to such bank accounts in Kerala, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra.On Friday, Delhi Police also busted a network involved in procuring and supplying mule bank accounts to cyber fraudsters and arrested three people from Delhi and UP. The accused allegedly facilitated the opening and supply of bank accounts used for receiving and routing money obtained through online fraud, he said.
