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Introduction
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The recent investigation of Patan Cyber Crime Police as part of Operation Mule Hunt 2.0 reveals the sheer scale and intricacy of India's burgeoning cyber fraud economy. Police found that a total of 13 current accounts were being operated at a cooperative bank in the Patan district of Gujarat and used for siphoning 398.43 crore of cyber fraud transaction data on 228 cybercrime cases across states. Further investigations against 14 current account holders and intermediaries show the indispensability of mule accounts in laundering criminal money. The recent incident cannot be taken as isolated; the story points at a formalised and industrialised fraud economy with a robust banking infrastructure, a growing payment gateway, and complex networks.
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What Is a Mule Account and Why Should You Care?
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The term "mule account" is benign but plays a critical role in modern cybercrime networks. The Reserve Bank of India defines a mule account as a bank account that serves as a vehicle to transfer money proceeds from unlawful transactions and can be operated by people coerced by the prospect of high earnings or by way of inducement.

This mechanism can be witnessed through the investigation of the Patan cybercrime incident, where an investor can be defrauded by a fake investment website, employment fraud, or a digital arrest scheme. After transactions from the victim account, funds would quickly flow into the mule account, which would be held by a legitimate KYC customer. These transactions would then be passed on, between 1 lakh and 5 lakh transactions within hours, to multiple accounts as alleged by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) before they get difficult to trace by being passed through informal channels or converted to cryptocurrency.

In the Patan case, it is alleged that the middlemen enticed locals and offered commissions to open firms and current accounts at Harij Nagrik Sahakari Bank and subsequently gave up their ATM cards, checkbooks, SIMs, and net banking facilities to the operators of the account. It is estimated that such accounts channeled an amount of 398.43 crore to 228 Indian cybercrime cases.

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The Scale of India's Mule Account Crisis

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The scale of the mule account ecosystem is reflected in India's rapidly worsening cybercrime statistics. As of data from the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (NCCRP), a total of 22.68 lakh complaints were registered in 2024, a jump by 42% from 2023. This was not even half the rate of financial loss, which jumped by 206% in 2023 (22,845 crore) and stood at 22,495 crore in 2025 (complaints jumped to 28.15 lakh). The increase in fraudulent transactions therefore outweighs the stability in financial losses significantly.

Mule accounts are the backbone of this crime network. To curb this phenomenon, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) launched a Suspect Registry along with Indian banks and financial institutions in September 2024. 24.67 lakh accounts of suspected mules were identified in this, preventing over 8,031 crore in fraudulent transactions. Despite these efforts, a recent statement from the ED found over 12,000 crore being routed via mule accounts, shell firms, and cryptocurrency.

This isn't isolated to certain banks. 2024 alone saw over 65,000 mule accounts detected in Karnataka. By analyzing the Citizen Financial Cyber Frauds Reporting and Management System, about 40,000 such accounts were detected in SBI branches, and thousands more were detected across the PNB, Canara Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, and Airtel Payments Bank. The Patan case also clearly highlights that cooperative banks' lack of compliance and lower levels of transaction-monitoring systems contribute to easily creating and using mule accounts.

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Operation Mule Hunt: Gujarat's Coordinated Offensive

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This bust in Patan is just one manifestation of a much wider coordinated effort by the state government. Operation Mule Hunt 1.0, which ran from November to December 2025 across the state of Gujarat, was a month-long campaign by Gujarat Police's Cyber Centre of Excellence (CCOE) that unearthed 2,289 crore of fraudulent transactions, led to the registration of 565 FIRs, arrest of 638 accused, and impounding of 913 mule accounts with connections to over 4,000 cases of cybercrime nationwide.

This was followed up with the second installment of the operation, which was kicked off in all districts of Gujarat in 2026. The two-week campaign, which began across the state on January 8 this year, resulted in the Surat City Police alone arresting 77 people and uncovering close to 23.85 crore in fraudulent transactions. In what looks like one of the single largest single-district bust-ups in the operation, the Patan incident itself, with a staggering 398.43 crore routed through only 13 accounts, is remarkable.

The extraordinary nature of the operation is seen in the intelligence capabilities that drove it. It wasn't that police accidentally stumbled upon the Patan network; they worked back on it. After using data from the union government’s inter-agency platform, SAMANVAYA, a coordination platform for data on cybercrimes and the NCCRP, they traced suspicious clusters of transactions in the Harij Nagrik Sahakari Bank accounts to build a chain of evidence connecting the accountholders to the middlemen and, from the middlemen, to the whole ring of fraud. Twenty accused have been chargesheeted under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and fourteen have been arrested, while six are still absconding.

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The Human Cost Nobody Talks About

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Behind every crore of scam money lies a real person who actually lost the real money. Of the 75%+ fraud losses incurred in 2025, 75% are from investment scams alone. Victims of stock trading scams lost ₹4,636 crore, spread across 2.28 lakh complaints filed in 2024. "Digital arrest" scams, in which fraudsters posing as law enforcement officials psychologically blackmail the victims to transfer money,  claimed ₹2,576 crore between 2022 and the first quarter of 2025.

For the victims it's never about the money: it's the retired teacher's lifetime savings from Chhattisgarh, the small trader's capital from Rajkot, the emergency money of the Bhopal family, or just savings from an ordinary person. And the mule accounts' networks are why most of it is never retrieved. Once the money is thrown into the layering chain, it's exponentially more difficult to trace it after every jump.

Then there's another category of victims that often gets overlooked, and they are the mule account holders themselves, many being semi-literate people from semi-urban or rural backgrounds approached with ₹10,000 in commission and with no awareness about the legalities of lending their bank details. With the BNS now they stand to get convicted for grave crimes, but the awareness of this trap is very low.

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Recommendations and Suggestions

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This isn't something India is facing passively. I4C, along with RBI, has developed Mule Account Hunter software. This software can be used by banks for the detection of suspect accounts through the use of behavioral analysis, device intel, and transaction pattern recognition. The Union Home Minister has directly asked all cooperative banks across the country to adopt this software at the earliest. Failure to do so, he warned, would make consumer safety from cyber fraud incomplete.

Apart from technology, three other areas need to go hand in hand: stringent KYC enforcement for cooperative and small finance banks; the prime locations of the mule recruitment network; greater awareness for the masses regarding the criminal liability one takes up when lending their accounts; and efficient inter-agency coordination so that the intelligence gathered on platforms like SAMANVAYA is converted into arrests before the accounts are dumped and the network reforms in another location.

Operation Mule Hunt 2.0 proves that this is feasible. 13 accounts in a small district of Gujarat. 398 crore. 228 victims. 14 arrested. The pipeline did exist, and it has been broken.

Yet, even as one network is broken, another is forming, somewhere right now. The accounts will appear legitimate. The holders of these accounts may not even realize what they have got into. That is the true danger of the mule accounts and work that cannot stop.

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Conclusion

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The Patan investigation has clearly shown that mule accounts have now moved from being a subsidiary tool of financial crime to becoming the infrastructure that underpins the economy of cyber-fraud in India. Every financial fraud, including investment fraud, digital arrest fraud, and phishing scams, is backed by a string of real bank accounts where the proceeds of crime are transferred and the trail is obscured. Though attempts such as the I4C Suspect Registry have made attempts to break down this network, it remains an overwhelming task. Robust KYC norms, real-time monitoring of transactions, and coordination between banks, police, and regulators are the key in preventing further industrialisation of cyber financial fraud in India.

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References

1. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/operation-mule-hunt-2-0-gujarat-
2. police-bust-rs-398-43-crore-cyber-fraud-14-held/articleshow/131594240.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
3. https://the420.in/india-cybercrime-2024-42-percent-spike-sims-imei-mule-accounts/
4. https://www.thehansindia.com/news/national/ed-explains-how-mule-accounts-and-crypto-networks-enabled-12000-crore-cyber-fraud-1047606
5. https://www.zigram.tech/article/mule-accounts-tier-1-tier-2-cities-india/
6. https://risk.lexisnexis.com/global/en/insights-resources/article/stopping-money-mules-in-india
7. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/operation-mule-hunt-2-0-gujarat-police-bust-rs-398-43-crore-cyber-fraud-14-held/articleshow/131594240.cms

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Introduction

Cybercrime is one of the most pressing concerns in today’s era. As the digital world is evolving rapidly, so do the threats and challenges to curb these cybercrimes. The complexities associated with the evolving cybercrimes make it difficult to detect and investigate by the law enforcement across the world. India is one of those countries that is actively engaged in creating awareness about the cybercrimes and security concerns across the State. At the national level, initiatives like National Cybercrime Reporting Portal, CERT-In and I4C have been established to assist the law enforcement in dealing with cybercrimes in India. According to the press release by the Ministry of Home Affairs, 12,5153 cases of Financial Cyber Frauds were reported in the year 2023, which is the second highest in State-wise Reporting after UP. Maharashtra has been highlighted as one of the States with the highest cybercrime cases for the past few years. 

In response to curbing the increasing number of cases, the state of Maharashtra has launched the initiative ‘the Maharashtra Cyber Security Project’. The purpose of this project is to strengthen the system’s defense mechanism by establishing cybersecurity infrastructure, exploiting technological advancements and enhancing the skills of law enforcement agencies. 

Maharashtra Cyber Department and the Cyber Security Project

The Maharashtra Cyber Department, also referred as MahaCyber was established in the year 2016 and employs a multi-faceted approach to address cyberthreats. The objective is to provide a user-friendly space to report Cybercrimes, safeguarding Critical Information Infrastructure from cyber threats, empowering the investigation law agencies ultimately improving its efficiency and creating awareness among common people.  

The Maharashtra Cyber Security Project aims to strengthen the department, bringing all the aspects of the cyber security system under one facility. The key components of the Maharashtra Cyber Security Project are as follows: 

• Command & Control Centre:

The Command & Control Centre will function as a 24/ complaint registration hub and grievance handling mechanism which can be accessed by calling the helpline number, mobile app or on the online portal. The Centre continuously monitors cyber threats, reduce the impact of cyber attacks and ensures that issues are resolved as soon as possible. 

• Technology Assisted Investigation (TAI):

Complaints that are registered are analysed and investigated by experts using cutting edge technologies such as Computer Forensic or Mobile Forensic, Voice Analysis System, Image Enhancement Tool, Deepfake Detection Solution to name a few which helps the Maharashtra Cyber Department to collect evidence, identify weak spots and mitigate the cyber threats effectively.   

• Computer Emergency Response Team – Maharashtra (CERT-MH):

The CRET-MH works on curbing cybercrimes which are especially targeted to affect the Critical Infrastructure like banks, railway services, electricity of the State and threats related to national security using technologies such as Deep web and Dark web analysis, Darknet & Threat Intelligence Feeds, Vulnerability Management, Cyber Threat Intelligence Platform, Malware Analysis and Network Capture Analysis and coordinates with other agencies. 

• Security Operations Centre (SOC):

The SOC looks after the security of the MahaCyber from any cyber threats. It 24/7 monitors the infrastructure for any signs of breach or threats and thus aids in early detection and prevention of any further harm. 

• Centre of Excellence (COE):

The Centre of Excellence focuses on training the police officials to equip them with desired tools and technologies to deal with cyber threats. The Centre also works on creating awareness about various cyber threats among the citizens of the state. 

• Nodal Cyber Police Station:

The Nodal Cyber Police Station works as a focal point for all cybercrime related law enforcement activities. It is responsible for coordinating the investigation procedure and prevention of cybercrimes within the state. Such Cyber Police Stations have been established in each district of Maharashtra. 

Funds of Funds to scale up Startups

The government of Maharashtra through the Fund of Funds for Startups scheme has invested in more than 300 startups that align with the objective of cyber security and digital safety. The government is promoting ideas and cyber defence innovation which will help to push the boundaries of traditional cybersecurity tools and improve the State’s ability to tackle cybercrimes.  Such partnerships can be a cost-effective solution that proactively promotes a culture of cybersecurity across industries. 

Dynamic Cyber Platform

The government of Maharashtra has been working on creating a dynamic cyber platform that would assist them in tackling cybercrimes and save hundreds of crores of rupees in a short span of time. The platform will act as a link between various stakeholders such as banks, Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) and social media providers to provide a technology-driven solution to the evolving cybercrimes. As a part of this process, the government has invited tenders and has called top IT companies from the world to participate and aid them in setting up this dynamic cyber platform. 

Why Does The Initiative By Maharashtra’s Government Act As A Model For Other States

The components of the Maharashtra Cyber Security Project and the dynamic cyber platform create a comprehensive system which aims at tackling the increasing complexities of cyber threats. The initiative with integration on cutting edge technologies, specialised institutions, expert professionals from various industries and real-time monitoring of cybercrimes sets an example that Maharashtra is well-equipped to prevent, detect and respond to cybercrimes being reported in the State. The project collaborates between government and law enforcement agencies, providing them proper training and addressing grievances of the public. By working on four key areas, i.e. centralised platform for reporting, collaboration between government and private sectors, public awareness and use of advanced technologies, the Cyber Security System in Maharashtra serves as a model for creating secure digital space and tackling cybercrime effectively on a large scale.  

Other States in India could certainly adopt similar models and achieve success in curbing cybercrimes. They need to create a dedicated response team consisting of trained personnel, invest in advanced software as used by Maharashtra, foster partnerships with companies or startups involved in AI and technology to build resilient cybersecurity infrastructures. The government of Maharashtra can extend hands to assist other states to establish a model that addresses the evolving cybercrimes efficiently.  

References

• https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=2003158 
• https://mhcyber.gov.in/about-us 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjPw-8afTTw 
• https://www.ltts.com/press-release/maharashtra-inaugurates-india-first-integrated-cyber-command-control-center-ltts 
• https://theprint.in/india/maharashtra-tackling-evolving-cyber-crimes-through-dynamic-platform-cm/2486772/ ‍
• https://www.freepressjournal.in/mumbai/maharashtra-dynamic-cyber-security-platform-in-the-offing-says-fadnavis

Introduction

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, CERT-In, is the national statutory agency that responds to Cybersecurity Incidents under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) of the Government of India. CERT-In and Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) have joined hands to develop a focused pool of Cybersecurity Leaders through the National Cyber Security Scholar Program (NCSSP). This National Cyber Security Scholar Program is to create a pool of credible and ethical cybersecurity leaders in the country who prioritise national cyber security in their professional endeavours. This program allows both organisations to jointly issue joint certifications for Cohort 6 of the National Cyber Security Scholar Program (NCSSP). This certification is provided to cybersecurity professionals who complete one of the world’s leading cybersecurity management programs.

About the Program

The National Cybersecurity Scholar (NCSS) is a comprehensive 18-week, 160-hour Instructor-led program for emerging cybersecurity leaders. The ISAC will conduct the program with CERT-IN and KDEM as knowledge partners. This Cyber Security Scholar program aims to provide an extraordinary opportunity, for scholars, to gain hands-on experience in real-world scenarios through activities such as war games. It will allow scholars to acquaint themselves with roles such as that of stakeholders,  including attackers, Security Operations Centre (SOC) teams, Forensicators, Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), and CEOs, and engage in tabletop exercises that simulate a cyber crisis. This program would allow scholars to understand how responses to cyber crises impact the financial performance of an organisation, including, stock prices and sales.  It offers a treasure trove of insights into the economic impact of cybersecurity decisions and the importance of proactive risk management. 

The program invites applications from various scholars including Mid to senior-level leaders, diplomats and diplomatic corps officers, mid to senior-level government officials involved in homeland and cybersecurity operations, experienced executives from Managed Security Services Providers (MSSPs), faculty members who specialise in new and emerging technologies, cybersecurity professionals in CII sectors and post-doctoral or research scholars in cybersecurity. 

CyberPeace Outlook

The National Cyber Security Scholar Program subsumes several key dimensions working towards building a resilient cybersecurity ecosystem for India.

1. The program focuses on skill development and enhancing scholars’ knowledge in domains of network security, ethical hacking, cyber forensics, incident response, malware analysis, and threat intelligence. 
2. The partnership between CERT-In and ISAC, government and Industry entities, ensures that scholars are exposed to different policy-level frameworks and technical expertise, offering a unique blend of perspectives that cater to the country's national security goals and industry best practices.
3. The scholar program encourages the development of new methodologies, tools, and frameworks that could be instrumental in tackling future cyber challenges and advancing India's position as a global leader in cybersecurity research and development. Research and innovation in cybersecurity are critical to the program.
4. It plays a significant role in providing opportunities for career development by further providing networking platforms with professionals, researchers, and thought leaders in the cybersecurity field, giving them exposure to internships, job placements, and further academic pursuits.

This program aims to support upskilling India’s broader cyber defence strategy through the creation of highly skilled professionals. The scholars are expected to contribute actively to national cybersecurity efforts, whether through roles in government, private sector, or academia, helping to create a more secure and resilient cyberspace. The National Cyber Security Scholar Program is a major advancement in strengthening cybersecurity resilience in India. In a digital world where cyber threats crossing boundaries, such programs are essential for maintaining our national security and economic stability.

References

• https://theprint.in/ani-press-releases/cert-in-and-isac-collaborate-to-develop-focussed-pool-of-cybersecurity-leaders-through-the-national-cyber-security-scholar-program-ncssp/2318021/ 
• https://isacfoundation.org/national-cyber-security-scholar/
• https://cyberversefoundation.org/national-cyber-security-scholar/ 

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