Bombay HC rejects bail of man who fleeced couple of ₹2.53 crore

The Bombay high court (HC), while observing that though a couple had not been diligent in verifying the person to whom they were paying money on the pretext of helping a widow living in Iran and transferred her husband’s wealth of 1

The Bombay high court (HC), while observing that though a couple had not been diligent in verifying the person to whom they were paying money on the pretext of helping a widow living in Iran and transferred her husband’s wealth of 1.8 million dollars to India, refused to grant bail to the accused who had extracted ₹2.53 crore from the couple in the name of the Iranian woman. The accused, a foreign national, who was arrested in February 2019, sought bail on the grounds that there were other accused who pocketed the money.

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The single bench of justice Sarang Kotwal, while hearing the bail application of David Markas, was informed by advocate Ashish Baraskar that his client was a foreign national but had a valid visa and all his documents were in order in the year when the alleged offence took place.

Baraskar further submitted that in their complaint the couple had not mentioned the name of the applicant and he had not played any part in the offence as he did not receive anything from the spoils of the crime. In light of these submissions, Baraskar sought regular bail for his client.

According to the couple, they had been to Bangkok in 2017 and on their return, the husband befriended a woman claiming to be from Iran on Facebook. The woman claimed to be an American citizen but was living in Iran after her husband had died in a war. She further convinced the man that her husband had left $1.8 million for herself and her 12-year-old son but her deceased husband’s brother was forcing her to marry him. Hence, she sought help to transfer the amount to India which the couple agreed.

The couple was contacted by different people asking them to deposit various amounts to different processes and parcels sent by the Iranian woman. It was only after the couple transferred around ₹2.53 crore to various accounts mentioned by the callers and visitors to their homes, did they realise that they were being cheated.

The police laid a trap when the applicant called the couple to the domestic airport to hand over ₹16 lakh for a machine they had been told about earlier.

Additional public prosecutor PN Dabholkar opposed the bail application and said that the mobile phone used by the accused was the same from which the couple was contacted regularly, hence his complicity in the offence with three others could not be ruled out; therefore his bail application should be rejected.

After hearing the submissions the court observed, “Undoubtedly, the informant and her husband should have been diligent and careful but the fact remains that both of them were misled and with clear deceit they were made to part with their huge amount.” The court further said, “There is no doubt that the applicant himself had called the informant to the domestic airport to collect the amount. Therefore, he is a party to the larger conspiracy of extracting money from the informant by cheating her. In light of this, the court said that as the offence was serious and as such cases were on the rise it was not granting bail to the accused.