Surat: City police arrested 41 cyber fraudsters under Operation Mule Hunt after registering 141 FIRs, uncovering that Rs 8.80 crore in fraud proceeds was routed through mule bank accounts in the city. In one case alone, investigators found deposits of up to Rs 30 lakh in a single account.Deputy commissioner of police (cybercrime) Bishakha Jain told TOI, “We had details of 2,971 ATM withdrawals and 950 cheque withdrawals linked to mule accounts involved in cyber fraud across the city. Based on this, police registered 141 FIRs and apprehended 41 accused. Notices have been issued to 2,074 account holders, and more arrests will follow. We are still awaiting reports from banks in some cases. So far, offences involving a fraud amount of Rs 8.80 crore have been registered.”Police said the mule account scan revealed deposits generated through multiple fraud methods, including gaming, APK scams, QR code frauds, task-based scams, work-from-home frauds, investment and crypto scams, and fake RTO challan frauds.Several cases came to light during the drive. In one instance, two persons were arrested in connection with a Rs 30 lakh fraud. One of the accused, Dharmesh Chopda, a labourer, had opened a mule account that received Rs 20 lakh of the fraud amount. He later handed over the account to another accused, Hitesh Chaklasiya, after taking a commission.“After the arrest of Chopda and Chaklasiya, we recovered details of 11 mule accounts from them. When these accounts were checked on the NCCRP portal, we found 57 complaints from 14 states involving a total fraud amount of Rs 53.09 crore. Given the scale of the operation and the number of people involved, we expect more arrests in this case,” Jain said.
