2 booked for creating 22 mule bank accounts used for 42 cyber scams nationally

Mumbai: Khar Police has registered an FIR against two men for running 22 mule bank accounts through which at least 42 cyber fraud cases were perpetrated throughout the country. Police said an amount of Rs 7.42 crore was defrauded collectively in these cases. One of the accused has been arrested.Khar Police were investigating a task fraud when they stumbled onto a much bigger racket of running mule bank accounts. The task fraud complaint was reported to the Khar Police in Feb where a woman working as an airline ground staffer was duped of Rs 4.07 lakh. The woman told the police that she had received a text from one Riya Sanvi on Feb 6, offering a part-time job requiring no joining charges. The job involved taking screenshots of products from Amazon and sending the images. She was promised a commission and asked to join a Telegram group. The complainant did as she was instructed. Another accused approached her on the Telegram group and asked her to make investments in order to be assigned more tasks. Over some time, the complainant ended up paying Rs 4.07 lakh but did not receive any commission.While probing this case, the Khar police team were led to Pune. Here, they found that a flat in Chakan area had been used to register for mule bank accounts. One of the accused, Avinash Kharat, ran 13 mule bank accounts, while his associate, Vikas Bhujbal, ran nine such accounts. The accused ran some of the mule accounts in their names and the rest in the names of other individuals. Police said these 22 bank accounts were used in 42 cyber scams across the country and the amount defrauded was Rs 7.4 crore.The case was solved under the supervision of DCP Mohit Garg and senior inspector Santosh Kate.