The Gujarat Police and the Cyber Centre of Excellence (CCOE) conducted Operation Mule Hunt 1.0, an enforcement drive exposing a cyber fraud network valued at ₹2,289 crore. The operation targeted “mule accounts”—bank accounts used by criminal syndicates to launder illicit funds—leading to 565 FIRs, 638 arrests, and action against 913 mule accounts across India.
Understanding Mule Accounts and Modus Operandi
- Money Mules: Individuals who rent or sell their bank credentials to criminals. Some are unwitting victims of scams, while others participate for financial gain.
- Laundering Mechanism:
- Layering: Rapidly moving illicit funds through a matrix of accounts across various states to obscure the trail.
- First-Layer Exploitation: The initial account receiving stolen funds; these are the primary targets for immediate freezing by law enforcement.
- Integration: Funds are eventually extracted via ATM withdrawals or converted into crypto assets.
- Impact: The operation successfully reduced fraudulent cheque-based withdrawals by 75% and suspicious ATM activity by 66%.
IASPOINT Booster Facts
- I4C: The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, established in 2018 under the MHA, serves as the apex body for federal cybercrime assistance.
- Legal Framework: Operations are conducted under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023 (formerly IPC 420) and Section 66D of the IT Act, 2000 (cheating by personation).
- Budapest Convention: India is not a signatory to this international treaty on cybercrime.
- Preventive Tech: Initiatives like MuleHunter.ai and AI-based risk scoring by the IDPIC (under RBI guidance) aim to identify and blacklist suspect accounts in real-time.
- Cyber Surakshit Bharat: Launched by MeitY in 2018 to build cybersecurity capacity across government departments.