Lucknow: Deoria police have busted a cybercrime network allegedly involved in opening and operating mule bank accounts and routing illicit funds through online platforms, including Binance, TG Exchange and the iPay app. Four alleged gang members were arrested, while an FIR has been lodged against 24 named people and four to five unidentified persons, police said.The arrested accused were identified as Shubham Singh, Saif, Shan Verma and Pawan Verma. During the operation, police recovered Rs 52,000 in cash, two SIM cards, two Pine Labs/PhonePe point-of-sale (POS) machines, three Aadhaar cards, a bank seal, a PAN card, a voter ID card and five ATM cards of different banks, officials said.Police said most of the accused are residents of Deoria and nearby areas. Investigators are questioning the arrested suspects to assess the volume of alleged financial transactions, trace the money trail and identify others linked to the network.Those named in the FIR include Israr, Nikhil Mani Tripathi, Vishal, Shubham, Aditya Rao, Irshad Qureshi, Deepu, Ankit, Jitendra, Abhishek, Durgashankar Gaur, Suryansh, Osama, Roshan Verma, Waris Verma, Asran, Ajruddin Ansari, Rajdeep, Monu Singh, Raj Verma, Pawan Verma, Shubham Singh and Saif Ansari.Police said the accused have been booked under provisions of the Information Technology Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Gauri bazaar station house officer Mrityunjay Rai said efforts were on to identify and arrest other suspects.In a related development, the Special Operations Group (SOG) and Gauri bazaar police late Thursday conducted raids at three locations in the Rampur Karkhana police station area—two in Dumri and one in Sirsia Number One—and reportedly took three youths for questioning. Rampur Karkhana SHO Ashwini Pradhan confirmed the visits but said he had no further details.
