Bengaluru: A few days after unearthing an `online investment fraud' being handled through a number of mule accounts run by Dubai based kingpin Prem Taneja and arresting two conduits -- Mohammed Uzaif and his mother Shabana, the CID has intensified its action on all the mule accounts being operated in the State, unearthing over 42,000 mule accounts being used for online frauds and neutralising over 158 such accounts.
Besides, the CID have arrested 13 masterminds of online frauds using different modus operandi, while the investigation led to the arrest of six people by Mangaluru police, who were part of a Nepal based online investment fraud.
After unearthing online fraud by Prem Taneja, who is an accused in IPL match fixing allegations and now living in exile at Dubai, the Bengaluru police had tracked over 2500 mule accounts, basically in the name of daily wage labourers and poor people, who don't have access to the bank accounts. The case was handed over to the Cyber Command Centre in CID, which took up a drive against any kind of mule accounts.
Within the next 20 days, the CID unearthed over 42,000 mule accounts, which used to transact huge amounts of money, but the owners were not traceable. Apart from Prem Taneja's gaming and investment App, which was being used to lure the investors, the CID stumbled upon many more similar Apps, that cheated gullible people in the name of investments.Apart from total 11 people working for Taneja, the sleuths have arrested another 13 persons, who had launched their own Apps and cheated people online.
Meanwhile, the search also led to busting of another Nepal based online investment fraud, where 11 persons have been arrested.
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According to Mangaluru City Police Commissioner Sudhir Reddy, the scam operated simultaneously from Nepal, Cambodia and Dubai.The online operators had hired people from all the states in India and had given them the task of creating mule accounts. The callers used to sit either in Nepal or Cambodia and lure the people in the country online using various social media Apps.Once the money is dropped in the mule accounts, their Indian employees used to transfer the money to Nepal.
The Mangaluru police have tracked over 624 mule accounts, in connection with 4580 cases. In one single branch of a bank, over ₹ 165 crore has been transferred to Nepal. The police are still verifying the total amount of money swindled in this racket alone.
