CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu police cyber crime wing on Friday claimed to have achieved a major breakthrough in a digital arrest case by arresting seven persons who are part of an international cyber crime gang.
The accused were arrested from different parts of the state for allegedly controlling 100 mule accounts used for laundering proceeds of more than 130 cyber crimes across the country. A mule account is a bank account used by scammers to transfer money that has been stolen or laundered.
The arrests also included one of the kingpins of the gang, the members of which had created hundreds of mule accounts across Tamil Nadu and rented them to cyber scammers in Malaysia who used them to layer and distribute the money defrauded from victims.
Layering in money laundering refers to the process of obscuring the source of illicit funds through a series of transactions.
“The gang also provided mule account banking services to scammers like extending the credit limit, QR scanning limit, engaging lawyers in case the account is frozen based on cyber complaint, etc,” the release said. The cyber crime wing made the first arrest in Chennai on March 31. The suspect was identified as R Faizunissa, a mule account agent. Based on her confession, six others were arrested.
A Boiskhan (58), a resident of Triplicane, was arrested. He was identified as the kingpin who ran the network employing persons to act as mule account agents. A Selladurai (40) from Villupuram, A Thameem Ansari (34) from Nandanan, Chennai, and S Devi (39) of Villupuram were arrested.
They were found to be mule account holders and agents. Another mule account holder K Fazul Ahamad (41) of Tambaram, S/o Anandhan, and L Sethuraman, an employee of South Indian Bank, who assisted in opening and operations of the mule accounts were also arrested.
These accused persons have more than100 mule accounts in their custody and are involved in more than 130 cases across India. Nine mobile phones, 12 sim cards, 10 passbooks, 18 ATM cards and eight cheque books were seized from them.