Cybercrime in Bengaluru: Six arrested for operating 126 mule accounts

Bengaluru: Officials of the Cyber Crime Police Station busted a gang of six people in the city who opened mule accounts that were used to transfer the proceeds obtained by cyber scamsters, officials said Friday. The arrested were Sameer K P, Mohammed Ahsan, Mohammed Irfan C A, Amal Babu and Thanzeel Shahul, all from Kerala, and Manjunath H C from Bengaluru. 

Mule accounts are those bank accounts that receive money from a third party, which is then transferred to someone else – they act as a bridge in the money laundering process, investigators DH spoke with said.

The 126 mule accounts were involved in 75 cybercrimes across the country, including 20 from Bengaluru, Bengaluru police commissioner B Dayananda said. “The suspects targeted innocent people, especially those in the service sector, cajoled them into giving their Know Your Customer (KYC) details and opened bank accounts in their names,” Dayananda said during a press conference.

“The mule accounts were then used to transfer the proceeds obtained through cybercrimes. The money was also moved out of the state and country.”

Well-placed police sources revealed to DH that the suspects, in some cases, offered money to innocent people, and in other cases convinced them to give photocopies of the documents by hoodwinking.

“Some of the victims were also from Kerala and other parts of the country who were in the city and whose KYC was used to open and operate the mule accounts,” the sources said.

The sources said that Sameer and Manjunath opened the mule accounts and operated them, Ahsan used laptops for online transactions and passed information to cyber scamsters and Babu targeted the victims to obtain KYC for opening the mule accounts.

“Irfan, on the other hand, had visited Dubai and found out about mule accounts and how to set them up and operate them. He along with Shahul were in touch with the scamsters in Dubai and and made financial transactions.”