The Karnataka State Police have recommended the establishment of a unified national platform to share information between law enforcement agencies, banks, non-banking financial institutions and payment gateways, which they say is “crucial for efficient cybercrime investigations.”
This platform would also enable regulators to monitor bank compliance and response times to law enforcement agency requests, argued the report titled “A study on the use of money mules in cyber crimes”, prepared by the Cyber Crime Investigation Training and Research Centre (CCITR) of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), released on Friday.
An expert committee anchored by CCITR to study and recommend ways to plug gaps in the financial services to stop the menace of using mule accounts (accounts hired for use by a third person) in cybercrimes has also recommended several measures to be implemented at the bank’s end as well. This includes fixing appropriate transaction limits for current accounts and generating Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) based on the verified business capacity, to prevent accounts being misused as mules.
“Using technical methods for identification and monitoring is crucial for combating mule accounts. AI/ML should be employed to detect mule accounts, and alerts should be generated based on fraud risk assessments and the use of a suspect repository,” the report said.
