Surat Man Arrested for Helping Cyber Fraud Gang Transfer ₹10 Crore to Pakistan via Crypto Wallet

Surat, Gujarat: Police have arrested a resident of Surat for allegedly helping a cybercrime gang transfer ₹10 crore to a Pakistan-based cryptocurrency wallet, officials said on Saturday.

The accused, identified as Chetan Gangani, was taken into custody by the Gujarat CID-Crime’s Cyber Centre of Excellence as part of an ongoing probe into ‘mule’ bank accounts used for laundering cyber fraud money.

According to police, Gangani worked with six people who were arrested earlier this month from Morbi, Surendranagar, Surat and Amreli districts. The group allegedly helped route ₹200 crore to cybercriminals based in Dubai through nearly 100 mule accounts.

A mule account is a bank account used by criminals to receive or transfer illicit funds, often without the full knowledge of the account holder.

Investigators said Gangani helped convert ₹10 crore into cryptocurrency USDT (Tether) and transferred it to a Pakistan-based crypto wallet using his BitGet account over a period of four months. In return, he earned a commission of 0.10% per transaction, police said.

The earlier arrests revealed that around 100 mule accounts were linked to 386 cybercrime cases registered across India, including digital arrest scams, investment frauds, loan scams, and fake part-time job schemes.

Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi, who also oversees the Home Department, said the CID-Crime has “cracked down on a major cross-border cybercrime network.”

“In a major breakthrough, the Gujarat Cyber Crime Center of Excellence has dismantled a large-scale mule account network operating across multiple districts, with financial links traced to Pakistan,” Sanghavi said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

He added that investigators had “meticulously tracked the money trail through seven layers, from Indian bank accounts to cryptocurrency transactions,” and uncovered that a Pakistani Binance USDT account had received over ₹25 crore from India, with the arrested gang being one of the main sources.

Police said the investigation is ongoing and more arrests are likely as they trace the flow of funds and identify other accomplices involved in the network.