Five bankers among six arrested for Rs 7.36-crore cyber fraud

A cybercrime investigation that began with a suspicious bank account in Northwest Delhi has led to the arrest of five bank officials and a man as well as the unearthing of an alleged network of mule accounts linked to cyber fraud complaints across the country, police said on Friday.

In June this year, officers at a cyber police station received information about an account at the Tri Nagar branch of CSB Bank, formerly Catholic Syrian Bank, that was allegedly being used to route money obtained through fraud.

The account had over 100 complaints against it on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCRP), police said. According to DCP Akanksha Yadav, Rahul had neither visited the Tri Nagar branch nor applied to open the account.

“The addresses associated with two other suspected mule accounts maintained at the same branch could not be verified. All three accounts were found to be linked to cybercrime complaints registered across India,” the DCP added.

Rahul’s account was part of a mule account network, allegedly being run by six bank officials — Shobhit Aggarwal, Sushant Kumar, Manoj, Ankur, Fatma and Pankaj. Besides Sushant, the rest of the five men have been arrested.

Police identified the sixth person arrested in the case as Mayank Kapoor. Further investigation revealed that at least 20 suspected mule accounts had been opened at the Tri Nagar branch. Police said more than 100 NCRP complaints had been lodged against the accounts, with Rs 7.36 crore moved through them.

“The addresses of the account holders were found to be non-existent and the photographs and KYC documents had not been captured in live condition,” Yadav said. According to the police, they traced the email IDs and IP addresses associated with the accounts to Mayank, who allegedly operated a fake call centre from Baba Haridas Nagar.

“He was arrested, following which, seven mobile phones, a laptop, seven cheque books linked to mule accounts, Rs 60,000 in cash, around 150 grams of gold, 55 passport-size photographs, 11 SIM cards, 63 Aadhaar cards, 60 PAN cards and seven debit cards were recovered,” the DCP said.

During questioning, Mayank allegedly told police that he procured documents from daily-wage labourers by promising them loans and passed them on to Shobhit, then a branch manager at CSB Bank’s Saraswati Vihar branch. Shobhit had joined another bank by June this year, police said.

Police said they subsequently traced the alleged mule account network to Sushant, the branch manager at the bank’s Tri Nagar branch. “Shobhit introduced Mayank to Sushant, and bank employees allegedly helped open mule accounts at the two branches,” said the DCP.

“With the alleged assistance of the bank officials, 17 mule accounts were opened at the Saraswati Vihar branch and around 20 at Tri Nagar Branch,” said Yadav. Police alleged that not just the managers, but business development executives (BDEs) and sales executives at the bank were also involved in the operation.

The accounts were processed by the sales team: Manoj, Ankur, Fatma and Pankaj. “Sobhit has been running the sham for years. He lives a luxurious lifestyle, and his finances are being verified,” a senior officer said.