NEW DELHI: Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has issued a high-level alert against transnational organised cybercriminals using illegal payment gateways for money laundering, officials said on Tuesday.The warnings from the I4C came following nationwide raids by Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh police, which uncovered illicit gateways created using mule bank accounts.The officials said the recent raids revealed that transnational criminals have created illegal digital payment gateways using mule or rented accounts to facilitate money laundering as a service and enable the laundering of proceeds from various cybercrimes.According to information received from state police agencies and analysis by I4C wing, current and saving accounts are scouted through social media (majorly from Telegram and Facebook). These accounts belong to shell companies and enterprises or individuals, the MHA said in a statement.“These mule accounts are controlled remotely from overseas. An illegal payment gateway is created using these mule accounts that are given to criminal syndicates for accepting deposits on illegal platforms like fake investment scam sites, offshore betting and gambling websites and fake stock trading platforms,” it said.“Funds are immediately layered to another account as soon as the crime proceeds are received. Bulk payout facilities provided by banks are misused for the same. Some of the payment gateways identified during operation are PeacePay, RTX Pay, PoccoPay, RPPay etc. These gateways are learned to be providing money laundering as a service and are operated by foreign nationals,” the statement said.
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