The Cyber Police Station in Sangli has made a significant breakthrough in tackling online financial fraud by arresting a 22-year-old local man for allegedly running an organized racket involving rented bank accounts. The accused, identified as Jaib Jawed Shaikh from the Timber Area locality of Sangli city, is accused of procuring bank accounts from their holders on a commission basis and supplying them to cybercriminals to launder illicit money.
The Complaint That Led to the Crackdown
The investigation was set in motion approximately a month ago when a man approached the Sangli cyber police with a disturbing complaint. His bank had alerted him to a large number of unauthorized transactions flowing through his account. Upon probing the matter, Inspector Sanjay Harugade and his team uncovered that the complainant's account was not directly compromised in a typical hacking attempt. Instead, it had been deliberately rented out to Jaib Jawed Shaikh for a commission.
Scale of the Racket and Seized Evidence
Further police scrutiny revealed the operation was far more extensive than a single account. Investigators found that Shaikh had managed to acquire access to at least 100 bank accounts through similar commission-based arrangements with the account holders. Upon his arrest, the police conducted a search and seized substantial physical evidence linking him to the fraud network. The recovered items included:
- 34 debit cards linked to various accounts.
- 27 mobile SIM cards, likely used to create profiles and receive OTPs for transactions.
- 17 passbooks from different bank accounts.
Modus Operandi: The "Mule Account" Network
Explaining the broader context, Inspector Sanjay Harugade highlighted that this arrest points to a larger, organized network of cybercriminals. These networks defraud people through increasingly common online scams such as digital arrest, fake online gaming platforms, and fraudulent trading schemes. The illegally obtained money is then quickly funneled into accounts like those controlled by Shaikh, known in cybersecurity parlance as "mule accounts." These accounts are used to receive and transfer the stolen funds, making the money trail difficult for authorities to follow and helping the masterminds behind the scams remain anonymous.
The arrest of Jaib Jawed Shaikh is a crucial step in dismantling one layer of this sophisticated cyber-fraud ecosystem. It underscores the alarming trend of individuals knowingly or unknowingly renting out their financial identities for quick money, thereby becoming accomplices in serious cybercrimes. The Sangli cyber police continue their investigation to trace the upstream cybercriminals who utilized these mule accounts.
