Lucknow’s ‘mule account’ menace: How local youths are fuelling global cyber fraud network
A friend of mine introduced him to a crypto trader who offered 20,000 RS if Ajay allowed the use of a bank account for a day. Attractive, accepted.
The next morning, they flowed into the Rupi Lakhs account before withdrawing under the instructions of others and was delivered to foreigners.
Within weeks, the police knocked on Ajay’s door. They told him that money was a part of a detailed international cyber fraud directed from his account.
The shocking, Ajay confirmer translated, the researchers helped to identify other account holders and intermediaries in a bond that connects the narrow strips of Chowk, Indira Nagar and Vrindavan Yojna, Sushant Golf City to operators working from Camboia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.
Police investigations by the criminal branch and cyber cells in the last three months reveal that the bank accounts used to launder illegal funds belong to young men and women from Lucknow. Others are university students. With the commissions ranging from 10,000 RS to 30,000 RS, they are attractive, knowing their accounts, borrowing cyber dishonesty progress to local facilitates who direct the crypto currency through irregular peers in the trc-20 block chain.
How to Network Works
According to the police, operations are coordinated in encrygrade channels operated by Chinese operators or deputies in Chinese language. Local recruitment staff collect account details and documents – usually avoid appropriate KYC or use fake articles.
During transaction days, mule account holders are accompanied by banks to withdraw cash immediately after large Neft, RTGs or IMPS transfers. Cash is then given to crypto brokers that convert to USDT using non -central, non -KYC wallets. Crypto wallets such as Binance found preferred options.
Funds come from a number of cyber crimes in India: online investment frauds, fake business or task plans, sex and fake trade platforms. The payments of the victims are converted into mule accounts before they disappear into the block chain beyond the jurisdiction of any country.
Only in the last two months, the Lucknow police RS 5 Lakh to RS 5 Crore was washed through such accounts, all funds were finally transformed into USDT and sent abroad. Network prevents legal exchanges, taxation and banking compliance and hides its activity as “crypto trade”.
Lucknow – A center for mule accounts
Police, Chowk, Indira Nagar, Madiyaon, Malihabad and Bakshi Ka Talab, such as the concentration of mule accounts in the old Lucknow regions, as well as Sushant Golf City, Vrindavan Yojna and Bankurban Mohanlalganj recently developed neighborhoods.
Police were also detained from questioning about 60 young men from different regions of the accounts used as mules in cases of cyber fraud containing Rupi Crores.
“These young people are not hardened criminals, but their actions provide a large -scale fraud.” He said.
Participating in the capture of more than one gang in the capital, Kumar said, “A few young people regretted that they have underestimated legal risks.”
This phenomenon is also connected to the darker side of the global cyber crime economy: cyber slavery rackets in Southeast Asia. Thousands of Indians are exposed to human trade with fake job offers or withdraws abroad, and then he has to work in the deception factories targeting victims in India and elsewhere – Nutrition returns to networks based on mule accounts.
Next way
Lucknow police broke this kind of more than one cases and define the pattern, while the authorities agree to be the scale and sophisticated. Encrypted communication leaves small paper traces, a combination of decentralized crypto wallets and disposable bank accounts.
Uttar Pradesh police, a special unit of the Ministry of Interior Ministry, and India Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C) prepared a joint action plan to strengthen the state’s response to cyber crime.
At a high -level meeting of DGP Rajeev Krishna on August 6, the authorities agreed to establish a special cyber crime center, to create a special unit for crimes against women and children, to determine the hot points of fraud and to distribute educated technology enthusiast staff. The people’s raise driving forces will be expanded.
During a video conference with the police chiefs of 75 districts on August 8, the DGP ensured that cyber cells were managed only by educated civil servants, and the use of NCRP portal was maximized and the Cytrain registration was completed within 15 days through I4C.
As for Ajay, now he warns that his friends will never “rent”.
“I thought it was just an extra cash, or he says.
“Now I know it’s a crime – I’m lucky to have a second chance.”
