The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a chargesheet against 17 individuals, including four Chinese nationals, and 58 companies, for their alleged involvement in a transnational cyber fraud network that siphoned off over ₹1,000 crore. The agency's action follows an investigation that uncovered a complex web of shell entities and digital scams.
The CBI's investigation, initiated after busting the racket in October 2025, revealed a tightly coordinated syndicate that utilized an elaborate digital and financial infrastructure to execute a range of fraudulent schemes. These schemes included misleading loan applications, fake investment schemes, Ponzi and multi-level marketing models, bogus part-time job offers, and fraudulent online gaming platforms.
According to the CBI's final report, the group layered the flow of illicit funds through 111 shell companies, routing approximately ₹1,000 crore via mule accounts. Investigators found that one account alone received more than ₹152 crore in a short period. The shell companies, according to the CBI, were established using dummy directors and forged or misleading documents. These entities were then used to open bank accounts and merchant accounts with various payment gateways, facilitating the rapid layering and diversion of the proceeds from the cybercrimes.
The investigation traced the origins of the scam back to 2020, a period when the country was grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. The shell companies were allegedly incorporated at the direction of four Chinese handlers: Zou Yi, Huan Liu, Weijian Liu, and Guanhua Wang. These individuals are accused of directing their Indian associates to procure identity documents from unsuspecting individuals. These documents were then used to establish the network of shell companies and mule accounts, with the purpose of laundering the scam proceeds and obscuring the money trail.
The CBI's investigation also uncovered how the syndicate exploited payment aggregators to rapidly move money between multiple shell accounts. The agency found that the fraudsters utilized technology-driven aggregator systems to simultaneously access and operate a large number of bank accounts. This allowed them to launder the money "at a high speed from the accounts of one shell company to other". In some instances, the syndicate disbursed a small portion of the funds back to the investors to gain their confidence. The collected money was also converted into cryptocurrencies before being sent out of the country.
The CBI spokesperson stated that these frauds were connected and controlled by a single organized criminal syndicate based overseas. The agency's findings have highlighted one of the most coordinated cybercrime networks exposed in the post-COVID period.
In a related development, the CBI has also been cracking down on mule accounts used by cybercriminals to launder money. A recent coordinated search operation at 42 locations across multiple states led to the arrest of nine suspects, including alleged middlemen, agents, aggregators, account holders, and banking correspondents.
