The Kerala police handed over reports to mainstream banks of the country demanding to close down accounts which were used to cheat Malayalees of crores of rupees through loan apps, online malpractice, and OTP frauds. Details about these accounts will be submitted to the Reserve Bank of India too.
These are accounts into which money that was swindled from the people in the State was stashed from 2021. The usual practice adopted by the banks is to freeze and close down accounts when the police demand such action supported by evidence. The police have demanded that the banks close down the accounts within 7 days of receiving the request letter.
Seventy of the accounts which acted as accomplices in the fraudulent activities are located in Kerala. The police have found in their investigations that holders of these accounts had given them over to others to operate, after taking a fixed amount as payment each month. These accounts acted as intermediaries for many of the cliques that carried out online frauds.
Of the rest of the accounts, the majority are located in Chhattisgarh and Delhi while some of them are in Rajasthan and North Eastern States. The police have learned that villagers are made to open accounts in their names and these are used by gangs to carry out the swindles.
The cyber operations wing of the Kerala police believes that after the accounts that were used to carry out the frauds for long are banned en masse, instances of cyber cheating will come down in Kerala.
Move to ban loan apps
Out of the 177 loan apps that were used to defraud and blackmail people in Kerala on a massive scale, 117 which were on Google Play Store have been banned. The owners of 60 apps that operate from abroad have not complied with the police directive. Action under Section 69 (A) of the Central Information Act is being taken against them to prevent their illegal activities.
Fall in amounts lost through deception
An average of Rs 50 lakh a day was being lost by people in the State through online rip-offs until recently. After the people realised the modus operandi of the perpetrators due to the awareness campaigns launched by the police and the media, the money being lost by the people on an average every day has come down to Rs 15 lakh, the police said.
