TGCSB cracks down on mule accounts in Telangana villages
Several youngsters in Telangana villages are renting or selling their bank accounts to cyber fraudsters for commissions, with TGCSB uncovering a widespread mule account network linked to cryptocurrency transactions and launching crackdowns and awareness programmes
Hyderabad: Drawn by greed, several youngsters in villages of Telangana are falling into the trap of cyber fraudsters and providing them bank accounts on a commission basis.
The Telangana Cyber Security Bureau, which recently conducted raids across the State to curb ‘mule accounts’ used by cyber fraudsters, found that many youngsters are renting or selling their bank accounts for a commission.
“Many of those caught during the crackdown are farmers, small-time businessmen and unemployed youth from villages. A majority of them opened the bank accounts at their native places and shared the details with some agents, who then supplied them to cyber fraudsters,” said an official of TGCSB.
This is how it works. Fraudsters convince individuals to rent out their bank accounts or use them to receive funds. These funds are quickly transferred to cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance to convert them into untraceable digital assets, often using P2P (Peer-to-Peer) services to bypass standard banking KYC.
“Once the transaction is completed, the account holder gets a commission on predefined terms. The amount credited into the account is swiftly transferred to anonymous cryptocurrency wallets. In certain cases, we were successful in tracing the channels with the help of cryptocurrency exchange platforms, but it is difficult to get the amount back easily,” said the official.
In Suryapet villages, TGCSB officials found that people in Kodad, Munagala and Nereducherla have opened several accounts after falling for easy money. The accounts were used in several cybercrimes across the country. Alarmed by this, the local police registered several cases against the mule account holders and started legal proceedings.
K Narasimha, SP Suryapet, said that after it came to the notice of the district police, they started a crackdown and also a full-fledged awareness programme in the villages to dissuade people from opening such accounts.
The police suspect that each of the account holders got between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 a day from transactions. In a few accounts, transactions of lakhs of rupees were made, but the victims were not from Telangana.
The TGCSB is getting information about mule accounts from the I4C centre and following up on it to crack down on local mule account holders and agents.