Kochi: In one of Kerala’s largest coordinated crackdowns on cyber financial fraud, the state police on Thursday registered 382 cases, arrested 263 people, and issued 125 supervision notices in 12 hours as part of Operation Cy-Hunt, a massive state-wide campaign that exposed online frauds worth over ₹300 crore. The operation was the result of nearly three months of meticulous preparation by the Cyber Operations Wing of the Kerala Police. 

The raids, launched at 6 am, were conducted at the direction of State Police Chief DGP Ravada Chandrasekhar, simultaneously across all police districts under the supervision of ADGP (Cyber Operations) S Sreejith, Range DIGs, and District Police Chiefs. Acting on intelligence and data from the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, the police traced hundreds of ‘mule accounts’ and arrested key members of cybercrime networks that operated across state borders. A mule account is a bank account used by criminals to launder illegally obtained money by receiving and transferring funds to mask the origin of the funds. 

“Earlier, the police could act only after receiving complaints from victims. Now, we proactively identify fraudsters by tracking suspicious financial activity,” said ADGP S Sreejith. “For instance, consider an account that normally maintains a minimum balance. One morning, ₹5 lakh is credited and, within minutes, the entire amount vanishes into multiple other accounts. Such patterns clearly point to mule accounts used by scammers. With help from banks, we trace these accounts and the people behind them,” he said.  

The operation targeted organised cybercrime groups involved in online trading scams, job frauds, phishing/smishing, investment traps, loan app scams, and identity theft. Data obtained during the raids revealed 2,683 individuals suspected of withdrawing defrauded money through cheques, 361 through ATMs, and 665 mule accounts used to move illicit funds. 

“Those arrested include individuals who gained illegal financial benefits by renting out their accounts or acting as intermediaries in large-scale cyber fraud. Account holders found to have unknowingly been used for such transactions were issued notices and released under supervision pending further inquiry. We will have to conduct further investigations,” Sreejith said. 

The top categories of fraud detected in the operation were online trading scams (34.8%), job scams (33%), phishing/smishing and investment scams (6.5% each), loan app scams (6.2%), identity theft (2.9%), and fake advertisement scams (2%). 

Sreejith said Operation Cy-Hunt marks a new era in cyber policing. “We are no longer waiting for complaints. We are tracking the fraud trail itself. Every illegal transaction leaves a digital footprint, and we are using that to go after the criminals. The operation, conducted simultaneously across all 20 police districts, was aimed at targeting digital fraudsters,” he said. 

Alappuzha topped with 50 cases, followed by Kozhikode City (43) and Kasargode (40). Least number of cases were registered in Kochi City (2) followed by Thiruvananthapuram City (3) and Thissur City (5).  Ernakulam Rural recorded 43 arrests, the highest in the state, followed by Malappuram (30) and Kannur City (23). 

Police officials added that Cy-Hunt will continue in the coming weeks to ensure coordination with other states and speed up the process of recovering money lost by victims to cyber scammers.