Mule account racket busted, 4 held in Punjab

The cybercrime wing of the state police today claimed to have busted an interstate mule account racket that allegedly duped thousands of persons of crores of rupees across the country.

Four persons have been arrested in the case, said DGP Gaurav Yadav. They have been identified as Gautam (23), Ehsas (24), who runs a hotel, and Akash (20), all residents of Amritsar, and Anmol (21) of Abohar in Fazilka district.

The police have recovered Rs 10.96 lakh, along with nine mobile phones, a laptop, 32 debit cards, 10 SIM cards, 15 bank passbooks and a cheque book from their possession.

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.

The DGP said the racket, which was active for the past two years, obtained bank accounts, especially from economically weaker sections for a small amount, and then used them to layer and transfer funds acquired through cybercrimes. “They had used hundreds of mule accounts in different banks across the state to transfer illicit money abroad through cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and DCX,” he said.

Special DGP Cyber Crime V Neeraja said the accused were part of multiple cyber fraud groups on the Telegram with admins rom South-East Asia. “The kingpins trained these local operatives on converting Indian currency into cryptocurrency. Anmol was the key supplier, sending mule kits via courier to his associates in Amritsar, who then activated internet banking services to facilitate the transactions. They received a 10-20% commission,” she said.