Cyber Crime
RahuI Mishra, Wanted with a 25,000 Bounty, Arrested in Noida Authority’s Rs 200 Crore FD Scam
Two individuals have been arrested in Noida for allegedly siphoning Rs 3.9 crore and attempting to steal an additional Rs 9 crore from a Noida Authority account. The account, which had been opened just 15 days earlier with a deposit of Rs 200 crore, was targeted by the fraudsters.
The police have recovered several incriminating items, including seven types of stamp seals, five Aadhaar cards, two PAN cards, 14 debit and credit cards, five cheque books, two passbooks, and around 115 printed documents from various private and government entities, according to DCP (Crime) Shakti Avasthy.
A police officer involved in the investigation revealed that the stolen amount, which has already been spent by the accused, was transferred to Gujarat and withdrawn through a hawala transaction. The mastermind behind the fraud, identified as Manu Bhola, has been involved in such activities for over a decade. Bhola, a graduate with a BSc in Nautical Science and a former Merchant Navy employee, had a reward of Rs 25,000 placed on him earlier this year in January for his capture.
In the past 14 months, five other individuals—Abdul Khadir, Sudhir Chaudhary, Murari Jatav, Rajesh Babu, and Rajesh Kumar Pandey—have been arrested in connection with this scam. Bhola was finally apprehended by a joint team from the crime branch and Sector 58 police at Kabir Palace Hotel in Karol Bagh, Delhi, along with his accomplice, Tridib Das. Both Bhola and Das are residents of West Bengal.
Bhola’s method involved gathering sensitive information about government bank accounts and then using forged documents to acquire the power of attorney for operating these accounts. All bank accounts linked to the suspects have been frozen, and authorities are working to recover any remaining funds. Bhola and Das had arrived in Delhi earlier in the week to plan more frauds. Bhola admitted to using a fake Aadhaar card under the name Rajiv Kapoor during his stay in various locations.
Bhola and his group had previously attempted to defraud government departments’ fixed deposit accounts in Ranchi, Gorakhpur, and Guwahati, but these attempts were unsuccessful, according to the police.
The investigation is now focused on how the suspects accessed the Noida Authority’s documents and whether any bank officials were involved in facilitating the fraud.
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The two suspects have been remanded to judicial custody following their court appearance on Saturday.
This case first came to light last year when Noida Authority chose the Sector 62 branch of the Bank of India (BOI) to open two fixed deposit accounts of Rs 100 crore each. On June 26, 2023, the Authority received confirmation of the FDs via email from the bank. However, when Chief Finance and Accounts Officer Manoj Kumar Singh visited the branch on July 3 to verify the details, he discovered the FDs had never been opened. Instead, Rs 3.9 crore had already been transferred from the main account to three personal accounts on June 30. Just hours before his visit, another Rs 9 crore had been moved to a different account. Following Singh’s complaint, the bank froze the account and successfully blocked the second transfer.
Investigations revealed that Abdul Khadir had posed as a Noida Authority official at the bank and used a letter with forged signatures of officials to facilitate the fraud.