Two held in Gujarat for providing bulk transaction bank accounts to cyber fraud syndicate
Gandhinagar, Sep 2 (IANS) Gujarat Police’s Cyber Centre of Excellence (CCoE) has arrested two men from Mehsana district for allegedly supplying corporate bank accounts equipped with ‘Bulk Mode’ facilities to a cybercrime syndicate, officials said.
Investigators have linked the accounts to cyber fraud complaints involving nearly Rs 1.5 crore across multiple states.
The arrests were made under ‘Operation Mule Hunt 2.0’ in connection with a case registered at the Cyber Crime Police Station under Sections 61(2), 317(2) and 318(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Sections 66(C) and 66(D) of the Information Technology Act.
The accused have been identified as Parth Barot, a resident of Ramnagar Society on Kamana Road in Visnagar of Mehsana district, and Rameshkumar Lavana, a resident of Dipda Darwaja near Ashapuri Mata Temple in Visnagar.
Police said both were apprehended in Visnagar and formally arrested before legal proceedings were initiated.
According to the Cyber Centre of Excellence, six accused had already been arrested in the case, while the investigation continued to trace others involved in the network.
Barot and Lavana are alleged to have obtained bank accounts from citizens and forwarded them to the syndicate.
Investigators said the accounts were specifically sought because of their Bulk Mode facility, which allows multiple transactions or payments to be carried out simultaneously.
Such facilities are generally available for business and corporate accounts, government departments, organisations and certain current accounts operated through corporate internet banking, rather than ordinary savings accounts.
Police said the accused allegedly approached holders of such accounts with offers of commission and obtained their Aadhaar and PAN cards, cheque-book photographs, photographs of the front and back of ATM cards, and internet banking IDs and passwords.
The information was then allegedly passed on to the syndicate. The accused also allegedly verified the account details and checked whether the internet banking credentials could be used to log in.
According to the police, account holders were also persuaded to install APK files on their devices so that the syndicate would not have to obtain one-time passwords.
The two arrested men acted as facilitators between account holders and the syndicate.
Police said details of bank accounts recovered from the accused were checked against the ‘1930’ cybercrime reporting portal and the Samanvay portal.
The verification indicated cyber-fraud complaints totalling approximately Rs 1.5 crore. Investigators also found 22 acknowledgement numbers linked to the accounts across India, including six in Gujarat.
Among the cases identified were two digital-arrest cases registered in Maharashtra, according to the Cyber Centre of Excellence. “Two mobile phones were seized from the arrested accused,” police said.
–IANS
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