Jobless man caught for providing bank accounts to cyber frauds

MUMBAI: An alert bank manager helped the Kurla police to catch a man who was providing bank accounts to various cybercrime gangs. The police said the accused had opened around 35 bank accounts in the Kurla West branch of Punjab National Bank and had got issued visa debit cards for every account to enable the frauds to withdraw money from foreign countries.
The police got a call on Tuesday evening from Sanjay Kumar Das, 50, manager at Kurla West branch of the bank informing that he had caught a person who had opened several bank accounts and several of them were under scanner of various investigative agencies.
Police said that after Das started getting notices from various police stations about complaints relating to cyber frauds, he started an investigation and his staff gave him the names of people they suspected.
On Tuesday evening, one of the suspects visited the branch and a staffer informed Das who immediately brought him to his cabin. “He learnt that his name was Amir Firoz Maniyar, 28, a resident of Neral in Karjat. He told the manager that as he was into export-import, he required bank accounts and opened these in the names of his relatives,” said a police officer.
When Maniyar was asked to provide details about his accounts, he gave some numbers and when the accounts were checked, it was found that a lot of them were under investigation by Bengaluru police for which the Kurla branch had also got notices.
“The bank staff immediately informed us about the accused and our team went and picked up Maniyar. We have till now found that he had opened 35 accounts in that PNB branch,” said the police officer.
The Kurla police have registered a case against Maniyar under Sections 317 (5) (receiving stolen property), 318(2) (cheating) and 323 (dishonest or fraudulent removal or concealment of property) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
“He only demanded visa debit cards as these can be used worldwide. We suspect he gave them to cyber gangs who sit in foreign countries. Maniyar is jobless and we suspect he supplied bank accounts to the gangs as they give commission that can range from ₹10,000 to ₹25,000 per account,” said the police officer.