Ahmedabad, Dec 3 (PTI) The Gujarat police have arrested six members of a gang for allegedly providing at least 270 ‘mule’ bank accounts to Dubai-based cyber scammers to facilitate the transfer of the proceeds of digital crimes, officials said on Wednesday.
The accused and their network were directly involved in at least 1,549 cybercrime offences registered in different parts of India over the past year, and the cumulative amount routed through these mule accounts is estimated at Rs 804 crore, they said.
A mule account is a bank account used by criminals to receive, transfer, or launder illicit funds with or without the knowledge of the account holder, they added.
According to a release by the Cyber Centre of Excellence of the state’s CID-Crime, the Criminal Investigation Department had in November arrested 10 persons as part of its crackdown on cybercriminals.
These six persons, identified as Kamlesh Ashok Sen, Sagar Sen, Rahul Agrawal, Sazeb Kherani, Sohil Vadhwania and Amin Bhayani, are accused of providing bank accounts and SIM cards to a Dubai-based cybercrime syndicate, it said.
The accused opened multiple bank accounts in the names of people who were either lured with financial incentives or were unaware of the criminal use of their accounts.
The bank kits and SIM cards associated with those accounts were then forwarded to their Dubai-based handlers working with cybercrime outfits, the release said.
Once the accounts were activated abroad, fraudsters used them to receive funds extracted through crimes like digital arrest fraud, investment scams, UPI fraud, deposit fraud, loan fraud and fake part-time job offers.
Money received in these accounts was either withdrawn in cash in India through intermediaries or moved across multiple accounts to conceal the trail, the release said.
Police said the arrested accused worked in a coordinated manner, each performing a specific task to keep the operation running.
One group was responsible for persuading unsuspecting people to open new bank accounts, while another group collected the account kits and SIM cards and dispatched them to Dubai.
A third group monitored the accounts, withdrew money as soon as it was credited and transferred it to other accounts or handed over the cash to intermediaries in exchange for a commission.
Accused trio Kherani, Vadhwania and Bhayani used their goods transport business as a cover. Under the guise of transporting nearly 200 truckloads of scrap material, gang members allegedly exchanged cash with Dubai-linked handlers and helped launder cyber-fraud money received in various accounts.
During raids in Surat as part of the investigation, police found evidence suggesting that the network helped open at least 270 bank accounts and acquire more than 300 SIM cards for the main handler based abroad, the release said.
For each SIM card, Kamlesh and Sagar Sen allegedly earned around Rs 1,000, while each bank kit fetched them around Rs 50,000 as commission.
Agrawal acted as a “payment processor”, withdrawing or transferring funds from these mule accounts on instructions from the Dubai-based mastermind. He reportedly earned 1 per cent commission on every transaction. PTI PJT PD NR
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.