India: GOI Issues Alert Against Illegal Payment Gateways

New Delhi: The Government of India has issued an alert against the possible use of illegal payment gateways. This is usually done by using mule bank accounts by organised cybercriminal organisations spread across multiple countries and using these accounts for money laundering activities. 

The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Center (I4C) which comes under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), advised Indian citizens not to sell/rent their bank accounts/company registration certificate/Udhyam Aadhaar Registration certificate to anyone as a precautionary measure.

“Illicit funds deposited in such bank accounts can lead to legal consequences, including arrest. Banks may deploy checks to identify misuse of bank accounts that are used for setting up Illegal Payment Gateways,” said the ministry in a statement.

Recent raids conducted by Gujarat Police and Andhra Pradesh Police revealed that criminals have created illegal digital payment gateways using mule/rented accounts. These illegal infrastructure facilitating money laundering as a service are used for laundering proceeds of multiple nature of cybercrimes.

As per the information received from State Police Agencies and analysis by Indian Cybercrime Coordination Center found that current accounts and saving accounts are scouted through social media, majorly from Telegram and Facebook.

“These accounts belong to shell companies, enterprise or individuals. These mule accounts are controlled remotely from overseas,” according to the I4C. An illegal payment gateway is then created using these mule accounts are given to criminal syndicates for accepting deposits on illegal platforms like fake investment scam sites, offshore betting and gambling websites, fake stock trading platforms etc. Funds are immediately layered to another account as soon as the crime proceeds are received.

Bulk Payout facility provided by banks are misused for the same. “Some of the payment gateways identified during operation are PeacePay, RTX Pay, PoccoPay, RPPay etc. These gateways are learnt to be providing money laundering as a service and are operated by foreign nationals,” said the statement.

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