New Delhi, Jun 30 (PTI) The CBI has arrested the 10th suspect from Patna, Bihar, in connection with its crackdown on mule accounts used by cyber criminals to launder illicit money, officials on Monday said.
The agency has found that the suspect had “links in foreign countries” which are being investigated thoroughly, they said.
The CBI had launched a nationwide crackdown on 8.5 lakh mule accounts in over 700 bank branches which were being used by cyber criminals to launder proceeds from scams involving digital theft, impersonation, fraudulent investments and UPI-based frauds, the officials said.
The CBI had during the operation conducted coordinated raids at 42 locations in Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh in which nine suspects were taken into custody.
The materials found during searches took the agency to the 10th suspect in Patna who was arrested recently.
The CBI has not yet revealed the identity of either of the arrested suspect and is tight lipped about the case as the operations are still going on, they said.
Those taken into custody include alleged middlemen, agents, aggregators, account holders and banking correspondents, all believed to be instrumental in orchestrating and facilitating the opening of these fictitious accounts, the officials said.
A mule account is opened in the name of an individual, who may or may not be aware that the account is used to launder illicit money.
The CBI has found that these mule accounts — established using falsified identification documents — were primarily used as conduits for siphoning funds from unsuspecting victims.
The agency’s preliminary findings suggest that some bank officials, e-Mitra agents and third-party facilitators may have actively colluded with fraudsters by facilitating account creation and enabling withdrawal of funds.
“We have observed that mule accounts are being used only once in most cases. Once the money comes into the account, it is distributed to other accounts and the mother account is closed, making it difficult to catch the criminal,” an official had said earlier. PTI ABS AS AS
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