2 cyber fraudsters who posed as bank officials for KYC updates get life term

RANCHI: Two men, both in their early twenties, who were part of a gang of cyber fraudsters in Jharkhand’s Deoghar that posed as bank officials and siphoned money from the bank account of their targets, have been handed out a life sentence and a ₹20 lakh fine each, a government lawyer said.

The stiff jail term for Krishna Yadav (20) and Virat Kumar (21) was ordered by special judge Sandeep Bhatia who convicted seven of the eight accused in this case on Saturday.

Of the other five, Raju Mandal (26), Mukesh Mandal (25) and Dinesh Kumar (22) were sentenced to ten years in jail and a fine of ₹5 lakh each. Two other convicts, Chetlal Mandal (33) and Ajit Mandal (19), were sentenced to seven years in jail apart from a fine of ₹1 lakh each.

Deoghar’s additional public prosecutor Shiv Lal Mandal said the prosecution was able to prove that ₹2.5 lakh , which had been siphoned from different accounts, was in Krishna Yadav’s account and another ₹1.5 lakh was in Virat Kumar’s bank.

The convicts defrauded people in different locations posing as bank staffers and cheated them of their money on the pretext of seeking information to update their KYC, he added.

Mandal said the prosecution produced six witnesses before the court who had been targeted by the gang including a doctor from Maharashtra and a businessman from Gujarat.

“We were able to prove before the court that these accused forged electronic documents to carry out their crime,” he said.