— POLICE TEAMS ALSO RECOVERS NINE MOBILES, ONE LAPTOP, 32 DEBIT CARDS AND 10 SIM CARDS FROM THEIR POSSESSION
— RACKET OPERATED HUNDREDS OF MULE ACCOUNTS, TRANSFERRED CRIMINAL PROCEEDS ABROAD VIA CRYPTO: DGP PUNJAB GAURAV YADAV
— ACCUSED WERE PART OF MULTIPLE CYBER FRAUD GROUPS ON TELEGRAM, WITH ADMINS SUSPECTED FROM SOUTH-EAST ASIA, SAYS SPL DGP CYBERCRIME V NEERAJA
CHANDIGARH, August 21:
Punjab Police’s State Cyber Crime Wing has busted an inter-state mule account racket involved in duping thousands of victims of crores of rupees across the country with the arrest of four persons, said Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav here on Thursday.
A mule account is a bank account used by criminals to receive, transfer, or launder illicit funds without the knowledge or sometimes with the complicity of the account holder.
Those arrested have been identified as Gautam (23), Ehsas (24), and Akash (20), trio residents of Amritsar, and Anmol (21) from Fazilka. Anmol is full time into operating mule accounts, Gautam is unemployed and Ehsaas has taken a hotel on contract at Amritsar and runs it, while, Akash was working for a short time in a company and presently involved in mule accounts cyber fraud racket.
Police have also effected a huge recovery of cash amounting to ₹10.96 lakh, along with nine mobile phones, one laptop, 32 debit cards, 10 SIM cards, 15 bank passbooks and one cheque book from their possession.
DGP Gaurav Yadav said that the racket was involved in obtaining bank accounts, especially from economically weaker sections for a small amount, and then using them to layer and transfer fraudulent funds acquired through various cybercrimes. “The accused were actively operating this criminal ecosystem for the last two years, using hundreds of mule accounts from different banks across Punjab to transfer illicit money abroad through cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and DCX,” he said.
Sharing details of the operation, Special Director General of Police (Special DGP) Cyber Crime V Neeraja said that after meticulous analysis of data on 6,000 mule accounts used in cyber fraud bank transfers, which was shared by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), MHA, by DSP Ashok Kumar, Cybercrime led to the registration of the FIR at the State Cybercrime Police station and under Inspector Gaganpreet Singh and team conducted the investigation and identified the suspects.
“Based on I4C’s hotspot analysis, an FIR was registered against 300 mule accounts of Punjab Gramin Bank and investigation traced 100 mule accounts to one location, in Abohar,” she added.
The Special DGP said that the investigation revealed the accused were part of multiple cyber fraud groups on the Telegram platform, with admins suspected from South-East Asia managing the ecosystem. “The kingpins trained these local operatives on converting Indian currency into cryptocurrency. Anmol from Abohar was the key supplier, sending mule kits via courier to his associates in Amritsar, who then activated internet banking services to facilitate the transactions. They received a 10-20% commission for their services,” she said.
Meanwhile, all accused are on police remand, and further investigations are ongoing to identify the kingpins based in India and abroad, and to examine any possible involvement of bank officials.
