58cr digital arrest fraud: No direct link shown, two get bail

Mumbai: A sessions court has granted bail to two suspects in a Rs 58-crore digital arrest fraud case—one of the biggest such in India—in which a retired pharmaceutical executive was threatened and coerced into making payments to various bank accounts from Aug-Sept 2025.The court gave relief on Monday to one of the suspects, Chiragkumar Chaudhari (30), who had spent seven months in jail, after finding merit in the argument that no financial transaction or monetary benefit had been directly traced to his own accounts. "The prosecution has not filed any documentary evidence along with the chargesheet to show the nexus of the applicant with other accused... There is no evidence collected against the applicant that he monetarily benefited from the alleged offence or any financial transaction is traced out in his bank account," the judge said.Chaudhari was accused of acting as a facilitator by providing a company's bank account to siphon off Rs 25 lakh of the extorted money. Police alleged he got commissions in cash or cryptocurrency. Chaudhari's lawyer, Arjun V Lingalod, said the case against him relied solely on the statement of a co-accused, which lacked evidentiary value at the bail stage.In a separate order on Tuesday, the court gave bail to the other suspect, Zaid Mughal (26), a cryptocurrency trader who was arrested in Nov 2025, while noting that the prosecution failed to show that he was a conspirator in the initial fraud. Through his lawyer, Nazneen Khatri, Mughal said he was a legitimate currency trader on an online cryptoexchange and had no knowledge that the Rs 24 lakh traced to his account were proceeds of the crime."There is nothing placed on record to show that the applicant received the investment from [the various entities through which money was routed]... knowing that the said investment is the proceeds of the digital arrest fraud. Merely dealing in cryptocurrency is not an offence..."In the two orders, the court observed that since the investigation has been completed and the chargesheet filed, further custodial interrogation is unnecessary. It also noted that many other co-accused had already been released on bail.