Bhubaneswar, Nov 30 (AHN) The Rourkela Police of Odisha on Sunday busted an organised cybercriminal syndicate involved in procuring mule bank accounts using the bank details of local residents and later provided those accounts to cyber criminals outside the state for laundering illicit funds obtained by duping gullible victims.

The police also arrested four persons — Ajay Kumar Sah, Sitanshu Kumar Swain, Siba Sankar Pattanayak and Prabhanjan Nayak— including three private bank- Kotak Mahindra Bank and IndusInd Bank- employees who assisted in opening the mule accounts. All the accused hail from different areas of Rourkela in Sundargarh district.

The organised gang, which operates out of Rourkela, is mainly involved in the procurement and operation of mule bank accounts, opened in the names of local residents belonging to Rourkela and nearby areas, for the purpose of facilitating large-scale cybercrime and money laundering operations in and across India and abroad.

“The gang recruited unemployed youth and fellow petty criminals in jail and asked them to arrange bank accounts, activate SIM cards and identity cards of unsuspecting individuals. They often use forged documents and impersonation. Most accounts were opened with the tacit approval and complicity of bank staff, bypassing standard Know Your Customer (KYC) norms,” revealed the Rourkela Police in a press statement.

They later sold or rented those activated mule accounts to cybercriminals across India, including Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Kolkata, etc. These accounts are used as pass-through accounts to receive fraudulent proceeds from cybercrime victims. These accounts were rented or sold at a meagre amount of Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 per account.

In a major revelation, the Rourkela Police also claimed that the gang has some international links, which are under investigation. Given the volume of accounts opened with forged documents and without adequate scrutiny, the police also suspect the involvement of more bank insiders.

The police also revealed that this is the third Mule Bank accounts case being registered in Rourkela this year. More than 60 cyber criminals have been arrested by the Rourkela Police in 2025 alone.