Gujarat Police’s Cyber Centre of Excellence has arrested seven residents of Surat for allegedly creating fake firms, opening more than 18 bank accounts, and supplying them for cyber fraud operations linked to over ₹116 crore. The arrests were made under “Operation Mule Hunt 2.0,” a coordinated crackdown that has now netted 19 accused across three separate investigations involving more than ₹330 crore in total.
Shell Companies as a Front for Fraud
The seven accused, identified as Rakesh Pokal, Gautam Savani, Jaydeep alias Jayesh Savani, Mayur Tejani, Akshay Kathiriya, Mayur Savani and Henil Narola, allegedly ran the network from offices in Surat’s Mota Varachha and Jahangirpura areas, with three partners driving the operation. Investigators say the group registered fake one-person companies, including Pokaarchtex, Genram and Tran Chhar Tech, specifically to open more than 18 current bank accounts across different banks.
Once opened, the account kits, along with linked SIM cards, were allegedly supplied to associates who used them to receive cyber fraud proceeds before withdrawing or transferring the funds onward in exchange for a commission. Police say verification of the accounts on the 1930 Portal and the Samanvay Portal, the interstate coordination platform used by Indian law enforcement to cross-reference cybercrime complaints, revealed 146 acknowledgement numbers nationwide, including 14 from Gujarat, tied to alleged fraud exceeding ₹116 crore. The offences linked to these accounts spanned investment fraud, UPI-related fraud, deposit fraud and trading fraud. Investigators noted that Gautam Savani had previously faced arrest in cases registered under sections covering attempted murder and murder, a criminal history unrelated to the current financial charges. Thirteen mobile phones were seized during the operation.
Part of a Wider Statewide Sweep
The Surat case is one of three parallel investigations under Operation Mule Hunt 2.0. In a separate case, police made six fresh arrests across three FIRs before four more accused were held in a related mule account racket operating from Vadodara, taking that case’s total to eight. A third investigation uncovered fake firms, including one called Chamunda Communication, used to open current accounts linked to 253 acknowledgement numbers and over ₹161 crore in alleged cybercrime, with the operator in that case, previously arrested four times and allegedly running the network from Dubai, found to be preparing to restart operations in Ahmedabad.
A fourth thread saw Abhilash Mishra, a Vadodara resident, arrested for allegedly making more than ten of his own bank accounts available to a mule account racket, having opened them while studying for an MBA at Parul University alongside another student. His accounts alone were linked to 28 acknowledgement numbers and eight FIRs across different states, involving fraud exceeding ₹7.40 crore.
Gujarat’s Recurring Role as a Fraud Conduit
The Surat arrests add to a pattern that has made Gujarat, and Surat specifically, a recurring node in India’s mule account economy. Just this week, a Surat software engineer was separately arrested after his bank account, used in a Telegram-based crypto scam, was found linked to eight cyber fraud complaints worth ₹24.72 crore across multiple states. The Cyber Centre of Excellence said investigations in all three current cases remain ongoing, with officials continuing to trace additional beneficiaries and the ultimate destination of the laundered funds.
