Suspect registry flagged 2mn mule accounts, Rajya Sabha told
The I4C has shared details of 800,000 suspects and 2 million mule accounts, saving over ₹2,889 crore since its launch in September 2022.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) has shared details of more than 800,000 suspects and more than 2 million mule accounts with banks, financial institutions and law enforcement agencies since its ‘suspect registry’ was launched on September 10 last year, the minister of state for home affairs Bandi Sanjay Kumar informed the Rajya Sabha in a written response on Wednesday. Through this, the government saved more than ₹2,889 crore.
The ‘suspect registry’ was inaugurated by home minister Amit Shah in September. It is a “centralised database of suspicious bank accounts and related identifiers that will be shared with banks and financial intermediaries in a secure manner”. The database is populated and accessed by banks, financial institutions and law enforcement agencies, who will also use it to strengthen risk management capabilities of financial ecosystem.
“If the states/union territories have data in silos, then it won’t help us in the fight against cyber criminals who have no boundaries. The time has come that a common registry for suspects is there,” Shah had said at the time of the launch, adding that all stakeholders will have to come together to deal with the menace.
During launch, an SBI assistant manager had said that this system can be used to look up the details of any suspicious account or person. “This will allow banks to trace suspicious transactions and related individuals in real time,” the video said.
In Wednesday’s response, the MHA informed the upper house that through I4C’s Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System that was launched in 2021 to report financial frauds, the department has saved more than ₹4,386 crore in more than 1.336 million complaints. I4C also got more than 3,962 Skype IDs and 83,668 WhatsApp accounts that were used to “digitally arrest” victims.