Axis Bank Staff Held in ₹500-Crore Mule Account Scam

Rajasthan Police have uncovered a massive cyber fraud racket in Alwar, where mule accounts worth over ₹500 crore were allegedly sold to cybercriminals. Six people, including four Axis Bank employees, were arrested on Sunday, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 16.

According to Superintendent of Police (Alwar) Sudheer Choudhary, the gang created fake current and corporate accounts using forged documents. These accounts were then circulated via WhatsApp and Telegram groups and later linked with new SIM cards and APK files, allowing fraudsters to access internet banking directly.

The accounts became key conduits for laundering proceeds from online betting platforms, gaming scams, and crypto transactions. Investigators confirmed that the racket had pan-India reach, with thousands of victims reporting financial losses.

The arrests included alleged masterminds Varun Patwa (40), a Udaipur native now living in Gurugram, and Satish Kumar Jat (35) from Hisar, Haryana. The four Axis Bank staff identified are Sahil Agarwal (33), Gulshan Punjabi (33), Asu Sharma (23), and Anchal Jat (24).

Police allege the employees misused their positions to open fraudulent current accounts with forged KYC papers. These were then handed over to middlemen, who sold them to cyber gangs at scale.

The racket’s scope is staggering. More than ₹500 crore is believed to have been routed through these mule accounts, with over 4,000 related complaints logged on the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP). Fraud worth at least ₹100 crore has already been directly traced.

Raids yielded 33 mobile phones, 34 SIM cards, and ₹2.5 lakh in cash. Authorities are now tracking further financial networks and beneficiaries tied to the scam.

Experts caution that mule accounts remain the backbone of cybercrime. By masking the flow of stolen funds, they make fraud nearly untraceable—especially when enabled by insiders within the banking system.