MP’s Satna district turning into fertile ground for mule accounts used for cyber fraud, suspected terror funding

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MP's Satna district turning into fertile ground for mule accounts used for cyber fraud, suspected terror funding



In February 2017, the MP ATS busted a Chinese SIMBOX enabled illegal phone exchange-aided ISI spying ring. Probe revealed that Pakistan’s ISI handlers were using Chinese SIMBOX enabled parallel phone exchanges at multiple dozen locations spread across India, including Bhopal, Jabalpur, Gwalior and Satna districts of MP to dupe people via online and lottery fraud.The money earned by the callers operating from Pakistan (whose identities were masked as calls converted into local GSM cell-phone calls by parallel exchanges) by duping people particularly in South and East India was parked in 200-odd accounts in 25-plus nationalised and private banks in Satna and Rewa districts of MP’s Vindhya region. All these bank accounts were managed by Satna-based Balram Singh (an ex-Bajrang Dal man) using the ATM cards of actual account holders. Pakistani handlers parked whopping sums in 2015 and 2016 in those mule accounts via Balram in return for commissions to the account holder.The money parked in these accounts of banks in the two MP was later withdrawn by Balram and then transferred to the bank accounts managed by an old Delhi based terror financer, who subsequently routed that money to ISI spies (via a clutch of traders on both sides of the LoC) operating in bordering areas of Jammu and Kashmir, including Satwindar and Dadu, who were arrested in RS Pura sector of Jammu in 2016.Two and half years later in 2019, the MP ATS was again in action in a similar case, by busting another suspected spying funding ring which was being guided by Pakistan-based ISI handlers. Three men, including Balram Singh (who was out on bail in the 2017 case), Sunil Singh and Shubham Mishra were arrested from their native Satna district for allegedly parking phone lottery and other telephonic fraud money in multiple bank accounts before transferring the money to bank accounts in other states at the behest of ISI handlers in Pakistan.The phone fraud money which were being parked in multiple bank accounts in Madhya Pradesh and other states, including West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar, was possibly being used by the Pakistan-based handlers to fund spying on India’s strategic interests which in the long run could have been used to wage war and terror activities against India.The cell-phones seized from the arrested trio by the Satna district police contained at least 17 Pakistani phone numbers on which the trio was regularly making WhatsApp calls, Net calls, besides sending audio and video messages. They sent video messages to Pakistani handlers to greet the handlers of Pak Independence Day.In a departure from the 2017 case, when Balram and his aides hired bank accounts of others (particularly poor people in return for monthly rent) to park and transfer the fraud money, the trio arrested in 2019 and their aides spread across the country, particularly in Satna and adjoining districts of MP and UP used their own multiple bank accounts to park and transfer money possibly to fund spying and also terror. Knowing well that parking major money volumes in accounts would bring them under IT Department radar, Balram and aides didn’t park more than Rs 50,000 in their accounts in Satna district, but instead regularly transferred money into bank accounts of other operatives of the funding racket operating in Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand, which was then possibly routed to those spying in India at behest of Pak handlers. Balram and aides got 8%-10% commission from Pak handlers on each money transaction.



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