Kanpur: The police busted a cyber fraud syndicate in Kanpur on Thursday. During the raid, eight persons were taken in custody, of whom five are bank officials. These officials were arrested for allegedly facilitating mule accounts and hawala transactions of over Rs 125 crore across the country.
How did the police crack the case?
The step was taken after an alert was received through the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP). After receiving the information, the police uncovered a network that was involved in cyber fraud, ‘digital arrest’ scams. They also used to route illicit funds through fake companies, the police said as per news agency PTI.
Sharing details, Kanpur Police commissioner Raghubir Lal said the gang used to handle proceeds from various cybercrimes across the country. The gang‘s links have emerged in at least 17 of these cases. According to him, the probe also revealed an online fraud of Rs 58 crore in Navi Mumbai few months back. Rajveer Singh Yadav is reportedly absconding and efforts are on by the police to nab him.
Yadav has been accused of arranging mule accounts and coordinating fund transfers, the police said. According to police officials, one mule account which was by a delivery agent witnessed transactions worth Rs 67 crore in just three months. Similarly, another account linked to a a fictitious firm in Agra saw transactions of Rs 53 crore in just seven months.
Three accused were paid 20% commission
As per the police, the three accused, Sonu Sharma, Satish Pandey and Sahil Vishwakarma, allegedly were paid a 20 per cent commission in order to allow the use if their their bank accounts, the police added. The police suspect that the group siphoned off around Rs 125 crore in a few months, the agency added further.
In another online fraud case, the police traced Rs 2.5 crore routed through a Kanpur resident’s account. Of the said amount, Rs 98 lakh has been frozen. As per the police, the account holder was not aware of the transactions.