Telangana Cyber Security Bureau arrests 101 in massive South India cyber fraud sweep

The Telangana Cyber Security Bureau has arrested 101 people across South India after exposing a massive network of cyber fraud and mule bank accounts that handled around Rs 17 crore in stolen funds.

The coordinated fortnight-long operation, which began on 23 September, spanned six states and Union Territories: Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Puducherry. More than 100 officers divided into six special teams carried out the raids, targeting the financial pipelines that allow cybercriminals to move cash quickly out of their victims' reach.

Police say the arrests have exposed how deeply these networks have penetrated everyday professional life. Far from being the work of isolated hackers, the network relied on corporate employees, university graduates, and local business owners who allegedly rented out their bank accounts or acted as agents in exchange for commissions.

Of the 101 people arrested, 81 were identified as mule account holders and 19 as intermediaries or agents.

Corporate professionals and graduates among those arrested

What surprised investigators was the sheer variety of people involved. The Bureau revealed that those arrested include an employee of Tata Capital who allegedly acted as an agent to source mule accounts, and a Flipkart worker whose account was linked to 50 different fraud cases across India.

Others caught in the sweep include an MBA graduate working as a corporate marketing head, who is linked to 15 cases, an M.Com graduate running a business who was connected to 34 cases, and a film technology diploma holder linked to 26 cases. Even an ex-serviceman was arrested, with police linking him to six cases.

The data compiled by the Bureau paints a striking picture of who is helping cybercriminals. About 82 per cent of those arrested are aged between 20 and 50. In terms of occupation, the largest group was business owners or the self-employed at 23 per cent, followed by private sector employees at 13 per cent, and homemakers at 10 per cent.

Their education levels were equally diverse. While 24 per cent were university graduates and three per cent held postgraduate or professional degrees in engineering and nursing, 11 per cent had no formal education at all.

How the multi-state cyber fraud operated

According to the Bureau's director, Shikha Goel, the network functioned by using intermediaries to recruit everyday citizens to open or hand over bank accounts. These "mule" accounts were then used to receive, transfer, and withdraw stolen money.

Once the funds from a scam entered these accounts, the money was quickly dispersed through ATM withdrawals, bulk bank transfers, and transactions sent to overseas accounts. The account holders and the agents who recruited them were paid commissions of up to five per cent of the total cash routed through them.

The investigation also revealed that the syndicates did not just rely on individual accounts. They also set up and misused bank accounts in the names of trusts and non-governmental organisations to mask the flow of illicit money. These NGO accounts have been linked to at least 60 fraud cases across the country.

During the raids, officers seized mobile phones, SIM cards, bank passbooks, and cheque books.

The scale of the network

The operation has highlighted the massive scale of interstate cybercrime in India. The 101 arrests are directly tied to 51 cases registered across seven cybercrime police stations in Telangana.

But investigators have already matched the arrested suspects and their accounts to a total of 1,172 cybercrime cases across the country, with 206 of those located in Telangana. Around 50 of the suspects were found to be linked to more than five separate cases nationwide, showing they were persistent players in the system.

Geographically, the largest number of arrests was made in Kerala, where police picked up 35 people. Another 22 were arrested in Andhra Pradesh, 17 in Karnataka, 14 in Tamil Nadu, 12 in Telangana, and one in Puducherry.

Among the specific targets was Tukaram Hembade, who was arrested in Bengaluru, leading to the subsequent arrest of Kokkarlapati Siddhu Varma in Anakapalli, Andhra Pradesh. In a separate case involving movie piracy, police arrested C. Vijay Kumar in Puducherry.

The Telangana Cyber Security Bureau has warned the public against renting out bank accounts, warning that doing so for a commission makes account holders active participants in major financial crimes.