Hyderabad: A quiet but lucrative cybercrime network is taking root in villages of Telangana’s Suryapet district, where unemployed youth are allegedly opening and supplying multiple mule bank accounts to cyber fraudsters, with some reportedly earning ₹5,000 to ₹10,000 a day for a living.So far, about a dozen suspects have been summoned for questioning in 46 cases, though arrests are yet to be made in these specific cases. Since Feb 25, Kodad town police registered 30 cases against local residents for allegedly operating accounts flagged by the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal for suspected links to multiple cyber fraud complaints. Police in Nereducherla and Munagala registered eight mule account cases each, involving suspects holding accounts in the District Co-operative Central Bank Ltd (DCCB) and Telangana State Co-operative Apex Bank Ltd branches in these areas.“Most of them are unemployed, some are farmers and some do low earning private jobs in Hyderabad. As majority of them opened their accouns in Kodad branches of five banks, most cases have been registered here,” said a Kodad town police official. The accounts were opened in Kodad branches of Bank of Baroda, HDFC Bank, Nalgonda District Co-operative Central Bank Ltd, Yes Bank and City Union Bank, police confirmed. Similar cases have surfaced in other parts of the district.In villages such as Munagala, Tripuraram, Pollaram, Vallapuram and Akupamula, several men in their 20s and 30s allegedly opened multiple bank accounts that were later used in cyber fraud operations. Preliminary investigations revealed that many suspects had opened multiple bank accounts across different banks and were also operating Binance crypto wallets, raising suspicions that the fraud money was being routed through a chain of bank and crypto transactions. A senior police official said: “There are lakhs of rupees worth transactions through the wallets and we suspect that the crime proceeds from cyber fraud victims are landing in the mule accounts and subsequently they are being transferred to linked crypto wallets to buy crypto currency, which later gets transferred to multiple users suspected to be cyber fraudsters.”A Kodad police official said each suspect, on an average, has opened about 10 accounts. “We suspect some have got daily incomes ranging from ₹5,000 to ₹10,000. They are natives of villages from Suryapet district but operate from Hyderabad. We are analysing the complex bank and crypto wallet transactions,” he added.Police took up investigations under ‘Operation Crackdown 1.0′, launched by the Telangana Cyber Security Bureau (TGCSB) on Feb 25. In an official statement issued at the launch of the operation, director general of Police B Shivadhar Reddy said the primary objective was to dismantle the network of mule bank accounts that serve as the backbone of cybercrime operations. According to the TGCSB, 4,775 mule accounts were active in the state in 2025. During the initial phase of the operation, 1,888 of these accounts were verified, revealing links to 9,431 cybercrime cases registered across the country, including 782 cases from Telangana. “There are suspicions of an organised network operating behind this, possibly involving bank staff or agents. In one instance, a single account in Sultan Bazar branch in Hyderabad was linked to 496 criminal cases nationwide, while in Suryapet district, 298 accounts in just four bank branches were confirmed to be connected to cybercrimes,” the DGP’s office said. While rural bank accounts are allegedly used as conduits to move proceeds of cyber fraud, senior police officials said over 100 accused, including some bank account holders and a few bank officials, have been arrested across the state till now for their connection in more than 500 cases linked to mule accounts.While some of the suspects claimed that certain mule account providers who had ventured into the illegal activity in 2024, have made profits of over Rs 1 crore and that some even purchased agricultural lands, SUVs and gold, police said they are yet to see any evidence to substantiate those claims. “Some suspects claim that one of the mule account providers is a former paramilitary constable who had left the job and ventured into mule account business. There are a lot of claims regarding the wealth of these mule account operators. We are in the process of collecting evidence,” said a police officer.
