We are the victims — ordinary people from Rourkela and nearby areas — whose identities, documents, and bank accounts were stolen, misused, and weaponized against us.
Without our knowledge or consent, criminal minds turned our names into tools for crime.
An organised criminal syndicate was finally busted by police in Rourkela after it ran a massive operation of mule bank accounts, fueling cybercrime and money laundering across the country. Seven people were arrested — including a private bank employee who was supposed to protect the system, not destroy it.
The arrested accused — Palash Ghosh, Aryaan Mahanandia, Waquar Khan, Vikram Singh, Ayaan Hussain, Akash Sharma, and Bipin Kumar Shaw — built their illegal empire by opening bank accounts in our names using forged documents, impersonation, and deception.
They didn’t just steal money.
They stole identities.
According to Rourkela SP Nitesh Wadhwani, these accounts were then sold or rented to cybercriminals across India, allowing fraudsters to route stolen money, layer transactions, hide trails, and launder funds both within the country and abroad. Every transaction pushed through those accounts dragged innocent people like us deeper into legal and financial nightmares.
What makes this betrayal worse is the role of Bipin Kumar Shaw, a 27-year-old bank employee, who allegedly helped activate these fraudulent accounts by bypassing mandatory KYC checks. Because of this inside help — or criminal negligence — dozens of illegal accounts slipped through the system unchecked. Police believe more bank insiders may be involved, given the scale of the fraud.
The gang didn’t stop there. They also arranged SIM cards and fake identity documents, charging ₹5,000 to ₹10,000 per account, turning our names into commodities for crime.
These accounts were later linked to multiple cyber scams, including online gaming fraud, and have appeared in over 200 cyber fraud cases nationwide, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Samanvaya portal. Every one of those cases represents victims — people like us — left to answer for crimes we never committed.
After receiving intelligence inputs, police launched a coordinated crackdown under the supervision of Additional SP Shrabanee Nayak, involving teams from RN Palli, Plantsite, B Tarang, and Sector-7 police stations.
The scale of the operation was exposed when police seized:
- 80 passbooks
- 50 debit cards
- 10 Aadhaar cards
- 20 PAN cards
- 15 cheque books
- 4 laptops
- 25 mobile phones
Each item tells the same story — systematic exploitation, calculated fraud, and total disregard for innocent lives.
We are the victims whose identities were hijacked.
They are the accused who ran the racket.
And this arrest is not just a police action — it is proof that mule account scams destroy lives long before scammers ever face justice.