Odisha STF arrests three for sharing 5,000 mule accounts with cyber crooks

BHUBANESWAR: The special task force (STF) of Odisha state crime branch on Thursday arrested three men for allegedly opening mule accounts on behalf of cyber criminals to park illegally acquired money and make illegal transactions.
The STF said that the gang received Rs 10 crore commission by sharing details of 5,000 mule accounts with cyber scammers.
The accused have been identified as Sheikh Hapizul, Sheikh Jahangir (both from Balasore) and Sheikh Jamiruddin of West Medinipur, West Bengal.

The act of transferring unlawfully acquired funds on behalf of another person or business is commonly referred to as “money muling” or “mule fraud.”

According to STF’s inspector general police JN Pankaj, the accused induced innocent and unsuspecting villagers in Odisha, West Bengal and Jharkhand and opened bank accounts by using their documents.
The villagers were offered Rs 2,000 commission for each account and had no inkling about the criminal intent of the accused.

The accounts were linked to the mobile numbers of cyber criminals to enable them to receive OTPs, which are required for online transactions.

The accused sold each mule account to cyber scammers for Rs 20,000 to help them keep and launder their fraud money.
The cyber fraudsters were having complete control over the legitimate mule accounts for illegitimate purposes.

Jamiruddin the mastermind

“We found that Jamiruddin is the mastermind of the gang. He has employed around 10-15 people for 15,000 per month to open mule bank accounts. The gang used social media platforms like secret WhatsApp groups, Facebook pages and Telegram channels to sell the mule bank accounts. So far, they have sold around 5,000 mule bank accounts and received about Rs 10 crore cut,” Pankaj said.
The STF got clues about the gang while probing some financial fraud cases in which crores of rupees acquired illegally were parked in many mule accounts.
STF said the cyber fraudsters generally abandoned the mule bank accounts once it reached a transaction of Rs 1 lakh.
“We are verifying the bank accounts of the arrested persons. Though the trio directly did not commit any online offence, they helped cyber criminals in arranging mule accounts for them. We are trying to find out as to how the accused managed to contact so many cyber fraudsters in different states,” Pankaj said.