Cyber-crime syndicate busted in J’khand, CID identifies 15K mule accounts linked to investment scam

Ranchi, Aug 21 (PTI) The Crime Investigation Department (CID) of Jharkhand Police on Thursday said it has unearthed a vast network of cyber fraud involving over 15,000 mule bank accounts in coordination with the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

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.

Jharkhand DGP Anurag Thakur told PTI that these accounts were allegedly used by cyber criminals to conceal funds obtained through fraudulent investment schemes and they had lodged an FIR in this connection last month.

Acting on inputs from the centralised I4C portal, CID Jharkhand launched a special operation targeting layer-1 mule accounts involved in high-value transactions of Rs 10 lakh or more, a statement from the CID said.

As a result, 40 such accounts have been named in an FIR on July 29, registered under multiple sections of the BNS besides those of the Information Technology Act. So far, seven individuals have been arrested during the investigation.

Their mule accounts were primarily used to channel funds in fraudulent investment operations. Interrogation and forensic analysis indicate that the cyber crime syndicate operates across several Indian states, with strong interstate linkages, the statement said.

Bank accounts operated by the accused have been found linked to investment fraud complaints filed in Bihar, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Delhi, it added.

These complaints were registered through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal.

The arrested people include Roushan Kumar from Ranchi, whose bank account was used to route over Rs 10.2 crore, and Rajendra Kumar Saw from Koderma with an account involved in fraud amounting to Rs 67 lakh.

While Pran Ranjan Sinha from Palamu maintained an account with transactions exceeding Rs 1.6 crore, Jitendra Kumar from Jamtara operated an account which was used to channelise Rs 5.1 crore across various states, including Kerala, MP, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, and Delhi.

The highest fraudulent amount was linked to Satish Kumar from Ranchi, whose bank account saw transactions worth Rs 6.2 crore, the statement said.

Investigating officers have also seized eight mobile phones, 12 SIM cards, nine ATM cards, four passbooks and nine cheque books, one business registration certificate, and WhatsApp chat records connected to the scam. PTI CORR NAM NN