Four held in B’luru for supplying bank accounts to part time job scam gangs to launder money

Cybercrime police arrested four persons who fraudulently opened bank accounts and supplied them to an organized gang involved in online part-time jobs scams for money laundering purposes.

The arrested have been identified as Syed Younus Fazil (31) from RT Nagar, Mohammad Kalimullah (35) from Bharathinagar, Syed Arbaz (24) from Kaveri Nagar, and Ibrahim Karnool (36) from Frazer Town. Three other suspects are said to be involved in the racket and an investigation is underway.

Police seized four mobile phones, two bank passbooks, six debit cards, SIM cards, biometric devices, and company seals from their possession.

Addressing a press conference city police commissioner B. Dayanand said that police investigations found that the accused created at least 30 different accounts in the name of unsuspecting villagers that were used to siphon off Rs 60 lakhs.

These dummy bank accounts were used to dupe part-time job aspirants of their money by a gang based in Dubai, police said. The accused had rented shops and created fake rental agreements in the name of various companies to open bank accounts. They also purchased SIM cards in villagers’ names to link to these bank accounts.

Further investigations have linked the accused to the gang in Dubai, who were using Instagram and Telegram apps to contact people, promising part-time jobs in various tasks. The gang would target people, from the lower and middle classes, and would convince them to deposit 10 to 20 thousand rupees in these dummy accounts.

Reportedly, around Rs 40 crore has been laundered through these fraudulent bank accounts. As many as 305 cases have been reported from across the nation. Presently, 30 accounts have been frozen.

Police have urged people to exercise caution on such online part-time job offers.