A small Instagram-based scam has led Delhi Police to dismantle a large syndicate using mule accounts to move over ₹70 crore across 19 states, exposing alleged collusion with bank insiders and a ‘bank account kit factory’.
A Delhi Police investigation sparked by a small Instagram-based job scam has exposed what officers describe as a sprawling mule-account network that allegedly channelled more than ₹70 crore through 248 bank accounts and linked victims across 19 states and Union Territories, according to police and local reporting. What began as a complaint from a Baljeet Nagar resident who lost ₹10,000 to a fake freelance offer has grown into a wider probe into suspected collusion between account suppliers and bank staff.
The man had been drawn in by a social media post promising work and was then steered to WhatsApp, where he was asked for a registration payment. After sending the money in three instalments, he was cut off. That complaint was filed on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal on June 29 and transferred to Delhi Police’s Central district cyber unit, which began tracing the payments through a web of linked accounts.
Investigators say the trail led first to a shell firm called Damion Traders and then to Mohit Soni, a 26-year-old resident of Haiderpur. Police later arrested Yogesh Kumar, Ranjit Damion Ekka, Dishant Khanna, Mridul and Kundan Kumar, as well as a bank manager, in a series of arrests between July 8 and July 20. According to police, Khanna is believed to have been the central organiser, while Kumar, posted at a Suryoday Small Finance Bank branch in Gurgaon, allegedly took ₹75,000 to help open mule accounts.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Rohit Rajbir Singh described the operation as a “complete bank account kit factory”, with recruits said to be used to gather identity papers, set up shell companies and open accounts in rapid succession. Delhi Police said the racket also relied on bank insiders, and officers from Axis Bank and around 15 other branches in Gurgaon and West Delhi were questioned over alleged cash kickbacks and insurance-policy inducements used to speed up account openings. Four employees, including an IndusInd Bank manager in Dwarka Sector 22, were briefly detained and then released after verification.
Police said the syndicate’s reach extended well beyond Delhi. The 156 complaints examined so far are linked to reported losses of about ₹20 crore, while authorities have frozen ₹56 lakh and flagged another ₹37 crore in transactions for closer scrutiny. During searches, officers recovered 248 ready-to-use account kits containing internet banking credentials, debit cards, cheque books and passbooks, along with SIM cards, phones, forged company stamps and other items. Investigators say the accounts were used to move fraud proceeds to handlers in the UAE and the UK, and a look-out circular has been issued for two absconding suspects believed to be part of the wider network.
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