Over 8.5 lakh mule accounts in 700 bank branches used by cyber criminals: CBI

New Delhi: The CBI has detected 8.50 lakh mule bank accounts in over 700 branches nationwide which are being used by cyber criminals to launder proceeds from scams involving digital theft, impersonation, fraudulent investments, and UPI-based frauds, an enquiry by the agency has found.

The central agency's crackdown on these mule accounts, opened using fake IDs for the limited use of siphoning victims' money, came through a coordinated search operation recently at 42 locations in Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh during which nine suspects were taken into custody, officials said Thursday.

Those taken into custody include alleged middlemen, agents, aggregators, account holders, and banking correspondents, all believed to be instrumental in orchestrating and facilitating the opening of these fictitious accounts, they said.

A mule account opened in the name of an individual who may or may not be aware that the account is used to launder illicit money.

The CBI has found that these mule accounts -- established using falsified identification documents -- were primarily used as conduits for siphoning funds from unsuspecting victims.  Alarmingly, the CBI's preliminary findings suggest that some bank officials, e-Mitra agents, and third-party facilitators may have actively colluded with fraudsters by facilitating account creation and enabling fund withdrawals.

"We have observed that mule accounts are being used only once in most cases. Once the money comes into the account, it is distributed to other accounts, and the mother account is closed, making it difficult to catch the criminal," an official told PTI.

The searches came after a new CBI FIR which was necessitated after the agency's findings during an enquiry.

The CBI had launched an inquiry to unravel the architecture of this laundering ecosystem and assess the complicity of financial personnel and the deficiencies in institutional safeguards.

"Enquiry revealed that more than 700 branches of various banks across India have opened around 8.5 lakh mule accounts. These accounts were opened either without proper KYC norms, customer due diligence, or initial risk assessment. The branch managers of the banks have also failed to conduct enhanced due diligence in respect of certain suspicious transaction alerts generated by the systems," CBI's spokesperson said.

The agency said its enquiry uncovered systemic lapses with some banks neglecting to dispatch acknowledgement or confirmation letters, a routine measure to verify the authenticity of a customer's address.

The CBI also found violations of guidelines issued vide the RBI master circular and certain internal guidelines issued by the banks.

Following the findings, the CBI has registered an FIR for offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, use of forged documents as genuine under IPC/BNS and also the offence of criminal misconduct by bank officials under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The search operation by the CBI resulted in seizure of incriminating documents and digital evidences, mobile phones, bank account opening documents, transactions details, KYC documents have been seized and identification of individuals including middlemen involved in opening of mule bank account was done.