18 mule account holders held for links to 547cr cyber fraud diversion abroad

Hyderabad: The Khammam police on Sunday announced the arrest of 18 mule account holders who allegedly worked with four persons accused of diverting 547 crore abroad as part of a wider international cybercrime racket. According to the police, the four prime accused — P Manoj Kalyan, U Vikas Chowdary, Bhanu Priya, and M Satish — are at large. On the pretext of providing jobs, they allegedly lured youngsters to open bank accounts and used their banking credentials to commit cyber fraud."These mule accounts were used to launder cyber fraud victims' money. The accused also paid the mule account holders," Khammam police commissioner Sunil Dutt said. In the past, Kalyan's role surfaced in a job fraud case probed by Cyberabad's cyber crime police, but he was not arrested."The wanted accused provided mule accounts to cyber fraudsters operating in Cambodia and other countries. Kalyan and the others transferred money from different mule accounts into their personal bank accounts. Later, using cryptocurrency, they diverted the money to their handlers abroad," police said.Since 2022, 114 crore got credited to Kalyan's personal current account. Similarly, 45 crore got credited to his wife Bhanu Priya's accounts, 135 crore to his brother-in-law Satish's account, and 81 crore to one Nagalakshmi's account before it was diverted.Police said the bank accounts of the accused have been frozen, and that they will write to the Income Tax department to find out if the accused came under their ambit for the unusual transactions. The accused had been running this alleged racket since 2022.