CHANDIGARH: The Cyber Crime Division of Punjab Police has arrested three people involved in facilitating the opening of current bank accounts, commonly known as mule accounts, to cyber fraudsters to aid routing, layering, and settling defrauded funds.
They were directly linked to Chinese nationals through Telegram, providing them with bank accounts and receiving profits in USDT cryptocurrency.
Mule accounts are usually 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 Gurjeet Singh, Raman Rai, and Sukhdev Singh, all natives of Jalalabad in Fazilka, and were operating from a rented room at Phase 5, Mohali, under the name 'Brother Traders' to arrange current bank accounts for cyber fraud activities,’’ Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav said.
The police have frozen approximately Rs 20 lakh in bank accounts linked to the gang.
23 ATM cards, two laptops, seven mobile phones, five SIM cards, forged bank/KYC documents, including 14 cheque books and Udyam certificates, six stamps, and cryptocurrency worth 5100 USDT were recovered from their possession.
Yadav said that during the investigation, it was found that the accused had been involved in such illicit activities for the past two years, earning approximately Rs 50 lakh in commission by providing mule bank accounts to cyber fraudsters.
“The bank accounts were opened using forged and morphed documents, and to evade scrutiny, the accused had rented a room in Mohali where they staged a fake business setup, including changing hoardings as required and keeping Ayurvedic products to create the impression of a genuine enterprise,” he added.
Sharing details of the operation, Special Director General of Police (Cyber Crime) V Neeraja said that action was initiated under ongoing operations against domestic hotspots to prevent cybercrime.
"The investigation revealed that the accused persons are directly linked to Chinese nationals through Telegram, providing them with bank accounts and receiving profits in USDT cryptocurrency,” she said, while adding that from inter-state linkages verified on the Samanvay portal of I4C, these mule accounts were linked to 24 cyber fraud victims, with an amount of Rs 26.65 lakhs placed under lien in those accounts.
She said that an investigation into the recovered ATM cards is underway to trace more victims of cyber fraud linked to this gang and uncover the full extent of the network.
In this regard, a case has been registered under sections 318(4) and 61(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and section 66D of the Information Technology Act at Police Station State Cyber Crime, Punjab.