Cyber cops bust money mule scam, arrest 6 accused

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Busting a cyber fraud network involving money mule accounts, the Cyber crime wing of the Bengaluru police arrested six persons allegedly involved in luring gullible people into their trap.

Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda speaking to the reporters on Friday, said that among the six accused, five hailed from Kerala while one is from Karnataka.

Explaining about the money mule accounts, Dayananda said that such accounts are created fraudulently by cyber criminals who lure gullible people into sharing their KYC documents including Aadhaar Card.

These accounts are further used by the fraudsters for laundering stolen and illegal money via the bank accounts without the knowledge of the victims.

The Police Commissioner further said that the gang used to act as agents for the Cyber fraudsters earning commission from them.

"One of the accused had visited Dubai where he learnt techniques involved in the financial fraud before forming a gang with five others," said Dayananda.

The Bengaluru Cyber Police detected 75 such cases filed at various cybercrime police stations across the country in which the accused were involved by opening 126 mule accounts in the name of victims.

DCPs to oversee cyber fraud cases

For proper coordination and timely action for cyber-related complaints, separate special investigations teams have been formed under the leadership of four Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) officials in Bengaluru, Dayananda added.

For fraud cases related to Aadhaar Enabled Payment Services (AePS) and Aadhaar Biometric frauds, Deputy Commissioner of Police, North East, Laxmi Prasad has been tasked to oversee the probe.

Similarly, DCP, Traffic, East Division, Kuldeep Kumar Jain, has been tasked to ensure investigation into FedEx Courier scams. DCP, Traffic, South, S Devaraju, will be heading the cyber police probing cases related to online job frauds and DCP, Traffic, North, Sachin Ghorpade, has been tasked to lead the cyber police in online sextortion cases.

Data provided by the police mentioned that 116 cases of fraud related to Aadhaar Enabled Payment System, 250 related to a courier company, 115 related to sextortion and 4,607 cases of online jobs have been reported in the city in recent times.