Gang providing bank accounts to cyber fraudsters to launder money busted in Surat; 4 held

PTI, Nov 14, 2024, 9:08 AM IST

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Surat: The Surat police have arrested four members of a gang, including one from Mumbai, for allegedly providing 623 bank accounts to cybercrooks in India and abroad for transferring crime proceeds of more than Rs 111 crore, officials said.

Three of the accused were caught transferring money, deposited by cyber fraud victims, from one bank account to another when the police raided an office in Gujarat’s Surat city on Tuesday, they said.

The bank accounts provided by the accused were used by India as well as Dubai and China-based cyber criminals, who duped people through digital arrest, job, task and investment frauds, a police release on Wednesday said.

The accused used to charge a specific commission for providing access to their bank accounts, it said.

A preliminary probe suggested that the four accused, arrested on Tuesday, were part of a gang which used to work with cyber fraudsters against whom the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP) has so far received 866 complaints.

These criminals face 200 FIRs across the country, the police said.

In June, the Surat police in Gujarat arrested eight persons involved in providing bank accounts (called ‘mule’ accounts) to cyber criminals to park defrauded money after charging commission.

Their interrogation brought to light that eight more persons, two of them based in Dubai, were also involved in providing such accounts, typically used for laundering proceeds of cyber crimes, the release said.

Based on the information gathered from them, the police raided an office in Mota Varachha area of Surat city on Tuesday and arrested three persons — Ajay Italia, Jalpesh Nadiadara and Vishal Thumar. Another accused, Hiren Barvalia, was arrested from Mumbai international airport when he was trying to board a Dubai-bound flight, said the release.

Four others — Milan Vaghela, Ketan Vekaria, Dashrath Dandhalia and Jagdish Ajudia — are still at large. Vaghela and Ajudia are currently in Dubai, it said.

When the police raided the office in Mota Varachha, the three persons was busy transferring money, deposited by cyber fraud victims, from one bank account to another.

After completing fund transfer, their accomplices used to withdraw cash in Dubai using debit cards, the police said explaining the gang’s modus operandi.

During the raid at the office and two other locations in Surat, the police recovered 28 mobile phones, 198 bank passbooks, 100 debit cards, 35 cheque books, 258 SIM cards and three computers.

The police learnt the gang was operating as many as 623 bank accounts, in which transactions of Rs 111 crore were detected, said the release.

A diary recovered from the office indicated the accused had acquired some of the bank accounts on a specific commission from 16 persons and they were charging fees from cyber criminals for using them, it said.

The NCRP data accessed by the Surat police indicated that of these 623 bank accounts, people from across the country had lodged 866 complaints against holders of 370 accounts on the portal as these were used by scamsters to accept money from cyber fraud victims.

The data also suggested the bank accounts were linked to 200 FIRs registered across the country for different cyber frauds, the police release added.