CCB unearths racket creating mule accounts for cybercrimes

While probing a cybercrime, the Central Crime Branch (CCB) busted a gang of four for creating mule accounts to help cyber crooks divert the swindled money into these accounts.

According to city Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh, the accused allegedly misused Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises’ Udyam Portal to open bank accounts in the name of daily wage workers, which were then misused for cybercrimes.

With the arrests, the CCB officials have frozen over 357 bank accounts that were being supplied to cybercriminals to be used as mules to allegedly launder the proceeds of cybercrimes. The probe also revealed the suspected involvement of some bank officials in the scam, which is being probed.

The accused have been identified as Lakshmeesh N, 33, a loan recovery agent; Prakash H, 43, a private firm employee; Sunil Kumar, 45, an unemployed youth; and Puttaswamy, 54, a car driver. The accused hail from in and around Bengaluru and probe is on to ascertain their links with the cyber crime network.

Initial investigations revealed that the accused lured gullible people and used their credentials to open bank accounts . The accused would take the bank details, including the debit cards, and operate them themselves. The accused would also share a small amount of profit with the account holders on a monthly basis in return of the favour, Mr. Singh said.

“For every ₹1 lakh transaction, the account holders received ₹4,000 as commission. We are probing if the bank account holders were also involved. Some of the mule accounts seized are also tied to shell companies,” said Mr. Singh.

The CCB also found that there were transactions amounting to crores of rupees from the said bank accounts, and over 100 cases were detected across the country registered with the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) where these accounts were flagged.

Police also suspect the involvement of several others in the racket and efforts are on to track them down to ascertain their involvement. The officials also recovered a laptop, four mobile phones and several bank accounts and cheque books and being analysed for further investigation.