NEW DELHI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday announced that the country's anti-cyber crime agency I4C signed an MoU with Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) to curb the menace of mule accounts used by cyber criminals to cheat gullible victims.
The partnership will focus on fraud-risk intelligence sharing, analytical support and operational coordination to improve proactive fraud detection and prevention mechanisms across financial institutions.
Announcing the coming together of the two entities, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the government is committed to building a “cyber secure Bharat”.
Describing the mule accounts as a major challenge in curbing cybercrime, Shah in a post on ‘X’ said, “The collaboration would harness Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect and eliminate hidden mule accounts."
According to Shah, data from I4C’s Suspect Registry will be integrated with AI-driven fraud detection systems to help banks identify suspicious accounts swiftly and strengthen citizen protection against cybercrime.
As part of the agreement, I4C will share mule account-related intelligence and suspect identifiers from its Suspect Registry with RBIH, officials in the MHA said, adding that the data would be used to strengthen AI-based fraud detection systems, including MuleHunter.ai™, which is being implemented across banks to identify fraudulent financial activity.
RBIH would use the datasets to train and enhance AI-driven fraud-risk assessment models aimed at improving the resilience and security of India’s rapidly expanding digital payments ecosystem, the officials said.
The I4C has been working to bolster India’s cybercrime response architecture through initiatives such as the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP), the Suspect Registry and other intelligence-sharing platforms.
The collaboration is expected to enhance coordination between law enforcement and financial institutions while strengthening public trust in digital banking and online payment systems.
The MoU was signed by Roopa M, Inspector General (Admin), I4C and Sahil Kinni, the CEO, RBIH, in the presence of RBI Deputy Governor Rohit Jain, MHA Special Secretary (Internal Security) Anand Swaroop, Joint Secretary (Cyber and Information Security) Rakesh Rathi, I4C CEO Rajesh Kumar and senior officials from the RBI, RBIH and I4C.