As a part of “Operation mule hunt” organised by the cyber crime police station, two accused have been arrested involved in a network of cyber fraud. The arrests were made in connection with an FIR registered at Cyber Crime Police Station, Chandigarh, relating to misuse of mule bank accounts for cyber fraud activities.After analysing these bank accounts, it was discovered that they were being used as “mule accounts.” (HT File)The accused include 24-year-old Salman Ansari, a resident of Milakh village, Mullanpur in Mohali and 32-year-old Bheem Saroj of Khuda Lahora, Chandigarh. According to the information from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Ministry of home affairs (MHA), it was found that several bank accounts operating in Chandigarh were linked to fraud complaints registered on the NCRP/I4C portal from different states such as Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Goa, Mumbai and Gujarat.After analysing these bank accounts, it was discovered that they were being used as “mule accounts.” A mule account is a bank account that is used by criminals to transfer or hide illegal money. In such cases, the account holder allows others to use their account to receive money obtained through fraud and then transfer to the different accounts as per the direction of fraudsters or withdraw it through cheque and deliver the cash to fraudsters.During the investigation, several such accounts were identified and the account holders were verified. The accused admitted their involvement and disclosed that an unknown person had approached Salman Ansari for a mule account and Salman pursued Bheem Saroj to open a new account.After opening a new account they supplied Bheem Saroj’s account for money. They further disclosed that large amounts of money were deposited into the bank account by unknown persons and after receiving the money, Salman Ansari would withdraw the amount through cheques and hand them over to the fraudster. In return, they received a commission and divided it between them.