Bengaluru: Four people held for opening ‘mule’ bank accounts, supplying them to cyber criminals

From the arrested, the investigators recovered over 357 bank accounts that were rented out to cybercriminals to be used as mules to launder the proceeds of the cybercrimes.

Bengaluru: The Central Crime Branch (CCB) of the Bengaluru police has arrested four people for allegedly cajoling people to open bank accounts to be used as money mules for cybercrimes.

From the arrested, the investigators recovered over 357 bank accounts that were being rented out to cybercriminals to be used as mules to launder the proceeds of the cybercrimes. During the probe, the CCB’s cybercrime investigators also found that employees of various banks were involved in the syndicate.

The arrested are Lakshmeesh N, 33, a loan recovery agent; Prakash H, 43, a private firm employee; Sunil Kumar, 45, unemployed; and Puttaswamy, 54, a car driver. All five resided in different parts of Bengaluru and surrounding areas, including Ramanagara. Except for Lakshmeesh and Puttaswamy, the two others had one case each registered at the North CEN police station.

“The suspects were found to be paying the account holders to create the bank accounts,” said Seemant Kumar Singh, Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru City. “The exact transactions made in these accounts are being investigated. The fraudsters use different modus operandi.”

Singh said that the suspects misused the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises’ Udyam Portal to register in the names of daily wagers and other such people and used those details to open mule bank accounts.

“For every Rs 1 lakh transaction, the account holders received Rs 4,000 as commission. We are probing whether the bank account holders were also involved. Some of the mule accounts seized are also tied to shell companies,” said Singh.

The suspects, however, received around 20 to 30 per cent commission as they were providing the whole banking kit, including passbooks, cheque books, SIM cards and access to mobile and internet banking services, an investigator said.

The CCB also found that there were transactions amounting to over Rs 150 crore from the said bank accounts, and over 100 cases were detected across the country registered with the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) where these accounts were flagged.

Police also suspect the involvement of several others, and an active investigation is currently underway. From the four arrested suspects, the CCB investigators recovered one laptop, four mobile phones and several bank accounts and cheque books.