BENGALURU: Caution is crucial when sharing your KYC (Know Your Customer) details. Cybercrime police in the city have busted a racket and arrested six from Kerala and Karnataka in connection with a fraud case.
The accused were involved in creating mule accounts after gaining the trust of innocent people and procuring their KYC details. At the same time, special teams have been formed to crack cyber frauds, specifically the Aadhaar-Enabled Payment System (AEPS), sextortion, online job fraud, and FedEx scams.
The accused have been identified as Sameer, Hassan, Irfan, Amal Babu, Tanzil, and Manjunath. They created mule accounts and gave the details to cybercriminals to engage in fraudulent activities. They used these accounts to transfer the money they earned, an officer, who is part of the investigation said.
The police explained that Sameer and Hassan, the masterminds, used to collect documents, including Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, and driving licenses from people who are often easily susceptible to such frauds. They targeted the labour class, street vendors, and small shop owners and used to give them initial amounts, ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000, to get their documents which they said would be used to clear off their loans.
Hassan was reportedly completing all the online procedures, while Irfan and Amal Babu were in contact with two cybercriminals, who are based in Dubai. The accused used to provide them with mule account details. The police are yet to identify the accused based in Dubai.
In all, 126 active mule accounts were detected and around 75 cases have been registered across the country involving these accounts, the police said.
The city police have formed special investigation teams under four deputy commissioners of police to investigate cyber fraud cases. The DCPs will supervise the investigation related to AEPS, sextortion, online job fraud, and FedEx scams, which are increasing, and coordinate with the bank nodal officers and IC4 organization of the central government to trace the accused.