A recent ruling from a Mumbai court has revealed the extensive network of mule accounts involved in a cyber fraud case, where a local housewife was defrauded of Rs 33.50 lakh through 969 distinct accounts.
Mule accounts serve as a tool for criminals, enabling them to receive and distribute stolen funds while complicating the tracking of these transactions. The financial trail presented to the court includes 978 individual transactions, with amounts as low as Rs 29, executed across various public and private banking institutions.
The victim, a 38-year-old woman with a background in finance and over ten years of experience in stock trading, first encountered the fraudulent scheme through an Instagram advertisement promoting stock market investments. After engaging with the ad, she was added to a WhatsApp group comprising 150 members, purportedly managed by an individual claiming to be a professor, along with an assistant and a manager. The group frequently shared investment tips and encouraged members to download a trading application.
Upon attempting to withdraw her alleged profits, the woman was informed that she needed to pay Rs 33.50 lakh as a “centralized tax” to the government. It was at this point that she recognized the scam and reported the incident to the police in January.
Seeking the release of Rs 20.12 lakh from accounts that had been frozen during the investigation, the woman filed a petition in court based on her First Information Report (FIR) submitted earlier this year.
The investigation uncovered a total of 978 transactions involving 969 unique accounts, with the smallest recovered amount being Rs 29.01 and the largest at Rs 45,510. Most of the transactions were in small amounts, a tactic often utilized to evade detection.
The judicial magistrate in Borivali stated in a ruling issued on March 27, “It is evident from the police’s findings that the accounts in question have been frozen, where the funds were transferred. The applicant appears to be entitled to temporary custody of the transferred amount.”
The court instructed the woman to sign an indemnity bond for Rs 30 lakh, agreeing to return the funds if it is later determined that she is not entitled to them. Similarly, the Borivali court has allowed the transfer of funds to other victims of cyber fraud, involving over 500 unique accounts in those cases.
A newly issued Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) by the Ministry of Home Affairs outlines the process for obtaining interim custody of funds that have been frozen or seized during cyber fraud investigations.
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