Belagavi police identify nearly 3,000 mule bank accounts linked to Cyberfraud

Belagavi: As part of a statewide crackdown on cybercrime, police in Belagavi identified 2,992 mule bank accounts allegedly used by cyber fraudsters to route illegal transactions.Speaking to the TOI, city police commissioner Bhushan Borase said that among the identified accounts, 772 were first-layer accounts directly used in fraudulent transactions. Police so far completed KYC verification for 256 accounts and registered 4 cases, though the verification process remains complex and time-consuming.Investigations revealed several methods used by cybercriminals to obtain mule accounts. In 1 case, a person befriended a woman working in Dubai who claimed he needed a bank account for business purposes. Believing she was helping a friend, she asked her mother in Belagavi to open an account through employees, which was later misused for cyber fraud.Police also found that some fraudsters openly solicit bank accounts online in exchange for commissions, often through the darknet. In other cases, accounts are rented or opened in the names of villagers, who receive a monthly payment without knowing the accounts are being used for illegal transactions.Another common tactic involves fake work-from-home offers. Individuals are asked to use their bank accounts to transfer money or carry out tasks such as money transfers, mobile recharges, or subscription payments for a commission, unknowingly becoming part of the fraud network.Borase said police are also monitoring banks, as there were instances where bank insiders allegedly leaked account information of customers with high balances to fraudsters. With stricter monitoring now in place in nationalised banks through coordination with the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), criminals are increasingly shifting their activities to cooperative banks where compliance systems are relatively weaker.The commissioner also warned about international cybercrime rackets operating from countries such as China, Thailand, and Cambodia, where scam centres recruit Indian youths with promises of high-paying data-entry jobs. Once abroad, their passports are seized, and they are forced to carry out online fraud targeting Indians. Belagavi police so far rescued 3 such victims."We are also taking the help of some private cyber security agencies and involving the students of different engineering colleges, including Gogte Institute of Technology (GIT) and Angadi Institute of Technology and Management (AITM) in Belagavi," the commissioner said.