Five arrested for providing 943 bank accounts to cyber frauds to park duped money

The accused opened the bank accounts using slum dwellers’ identities and lent them to the frauds to park their illegal gains and charged a commission, said a police officer

MUMBAI: The police recently busted a racket that allegedly provided bank accounts to cyber-fraud gangs operating from foreign countries, like Cambodia, Thailand, China and Malaysia, and have arrested five individuals. They opened 943 bank accounts using slum dwellers’ identities and lent them to the frauds to park their illegal gains and charged a commission, said a police officer.

(Shutterstock)

The police have identified the accused as Vaibhav Patil, Sunil Kumar Paswan, Aman Kumar Gautam, Khushboo Sandarjula and Ritesh Bandekar.

Acting on a tip-off, the police raided two companies in two companies in Kandivali East, DJ Search Consultancy and Pririt Logistics Private Limited, on August 13 and arrested the five accused after recovering two laptops, a printer, 25 mobile phones, 25 bank passbooks, 30 cheque books, 46 debit cards and 104 SIM cards, according to the police.

During interrogation, the accused men confessed to the crime and said that they paid slum dwellers to share their documents and created bank accounts in their names, after which they took control of the accounts and lent them to cyber-fraud gangs operating from foreign countries, involved in activities like digital arrest, fraudulent online shopping and online trading frauds, to park the illegal gains and charge a commission for the same, said a police officer.

The police investigation has further revealed that of the 943 accounts, 339 have been reported on the cybercrime portal. The police also found that the bank accounts were used to route a defrauded amount of ₹60 crore from various parts of the country, including ₹1.67 crore from Mumbai and ₹10 crore from the rest of Maharashtra,” the officer said.