The Central Bureau of Investigation launched nationwide searches at 42 locations on Thursday to crack down on mule bank accounts being used in cyber frauds.
Nine suspects have been arrested and around 8.5 lakh mule accounts in more than 700 branches of various banks across India have been identified. Acting on inputs, the central probe agency launched coordinated searches at locations across Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, according to an official statement.
The CBI took action under Operation Chakra-V against the menace of mule bank accounts being opened by organised cyber fraudsters involved in digital arrest scams, impersonation, fraudulent advertisements, investment frauds and UPI-based financial frauds to transfer the cyber fraud amounts from the accounts of the victims.
During the searches, several documents and digital evidence, mobile phones, bank account opening documents, transactions details, KYC documents have been seized and identification of individuals, including middlemen involved in opening of mule bank accounts, was done, the CBI said.
The arrested persons include middlemen, agents, aggregators, account holders and bank correspondents for their involvement in the operation and facilitation of opening of mule bank accounts.
They have been accused of facilitating in opening of mule accounts used for receiving and transferring proceeds of cyber frauds as well as enabling withdrawals from such accounts.
The CBI inquiry revealed that more than 700 branches of various banks across India have opened around 8.5 lakh mule accounts. These accounts were opened either without proper KYC norms or Customer Due Diligence or Initial Risk Assessment.
"The branch managers of the banks have also failed to conduct Enhanced Due Diligence in respect of certain suspicious transaction alerts generated by the systems. Some of the banks have also failed to send the acknowledgement/thanking letters to customers to indirectly verify the addresses of the account holders," the agency said.
The guidelines issued vide the RBI Master Circular and certain internal guidelines issued by the banks have been violated, it said.
The agency has filed an FIR for offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, use of forged document as genuine under IPC/BMD and also offence of criminal misconduct by bank officials under Prevention of Corruption Act.
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