Punjab Police bust gang involved in mule accounts; three held

Chandigarh, March 20 (IANS) Punjab Police’s State Cyber Crime Division has busted a gang involved in facilitating the opening and supply of bank accounts, commonly known as mule accounts, to cyber fraudsters for routing, layering and settlement of defrauded funds with the arrest of three persons, said Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav here on Friday.  

A mule account is a bank account 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 residents of Jalalabad in Fazilka, and were operating from a rented room in Mohali under the name “Brother Traders” to arrange and supply current bank accounts for cyber fraud activities. 

Police teams have frozen approximately Rs 20 lakh in bank accounts linked to the gang, while 23 ATM cards, two laptops, seven mobile phones, five SIM cards, forged bank and KYC documents, including 14 cheque books, six stamps and cryptocurrency worth 5,100 USDT were recovered from their possession. 

DGP Yadav said 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 action was initiated under ongoing operations against “domestic hotspots” to prevent cybercrime. 

“The investigation revealed that the accused are directly linked to Chinese nationals through Telegram, providing them with bank accounts and receiving profits in USDT cryptocurrency,” she said, adding 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 lakh placed under lien in those accounts.

She said 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. 

--IANS 

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