Delhi police bust fintech frauds

Delhi Police said on April 12 it arrested a private-bank employee accused of helping cyber fraudsters move stolen money through an account opened with forged documents. (rediff.com) Police identified the employee as Irshad Malik, 35, of Ghaziabad, and said he used his position at RBL Bank to open an account in the name of a man who had never visited Delhi. Investigators said Malik admitted taking a commission for routing cheated money through the account. (rediff.com, indianexpress.com) In a separate case the same day, Delhi Police said it dismantled a fake online investment platform and arrested three men accused of cheating one victim of more than Rs 47 lakh. Police said the platform promised returns from stocks, equities and initial public offerings that did not exist. (rediff.com) Both cases centered on the plumbing of cyber fraud, not just the pitch to victims. One case focused on a bank account allegedly opened with forged papers; the other traced money through a network of accounts used to make the trail harder to follow. (rediff.com, rediff.com) Delhi Police has spent the past week publicizing a broader push against that financial infrastructure. In Operation CyHawk 4.0, conducted on April 6 and 7, police said they arrested more than 600 people, rounded up more than 8,300 suspects and traced over Rs 519 crore of defrauded money to accounts tied to organized cyber-fraud networks. (rediff.com, rediff.com) The investment-platform case fits a pattern Delhi Police has described in several recent arrests. Since March, officers have reported multiple frauds built around fake stock tips, bogus trading dashboards and social-media groups that show fabricated profits to push victims into sending larger sums. (rediff.com, rediff.com, rediff.com) The bank-employee arrest points to another recurring problem: mule accounts, or bank accounts used to receive and pass along stolen funds for a fee. Police have repeatedly said recent Delhi cases involved people who procured, opened or operated such accounts on commission to shield the larger syndicate. (rediff.com, rediff.com, rediff.com) Police said both April 12 investigations are continuing to identify other members of the networks and trace the missing money. The immediate arrests were at the account-opening end and the fake-platform end of the same fraud economy. (rediff.com, rediff.com)