Mumbai Police have busted an interstate racket allegedly supplying mule bank accounts to cyber fraud networks operating under the guise of online gaming, cricket betting and online casinos.
The investigation by the Dongri Police cyber cell has revealed that more than Rs 125 crore was routed through just 17 bank accounts allegedly provided by the accused within a period of one to two months. Police have so far identified 110 such bank accounts, with 17 of them allegedly linked to 38 cybercrime complaints and offences registered across several states.
The complaints linked to these accounts have been registered in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir and West Bengal, showing the interstate scale of the racket.
Three accused from Madhya Pradesh have been arrested. They have been identified as Nikhil Kamalkumar Jaiswani, 26, Rahul Shyamlal Paraswani, 32, and Jay Bihari Lal Tiryani, 26. Police have also identified five other suspects and efforts are underway to trace them.
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According to the investigation, the accused allegedly targeted financially vulnerable people and offered them small amounts of money in exchange for bank accounts opened in their names.
Once the accounts were opened, the accused allegedly took possession of the account holders’ passbooks, debit cards, cheque books and SIM cards. These accounts were then used to receive and channel money generated through cyber fraud, making it difficult to immediately trace the actual beneficiaries of the transactions.
Police have seized 70 debit cards and 42 passbooks allegedly linked to the mule accounts during the investigation. The recovered banking documents are expected to help investigators understand how the accounts were controlled and how the money moved through the network.
The investigation is still underway, with police working to trace the remaining suspects and identify other people involved in sourcing and operating the accounts.
The case once again highlights how cyber fraud networks can exploit financially vulnerable people by using their bank accounts as a channel to move large amounts of suspicious money.
With Rs 125 crore allegedly routed through just 17 accounts in a matter of one to two months, the Mumbai Police investigation has exposed the massive scale at which mule accounts can be used to facilitate cybercrime.