Centre warns of illegal payment gateways and mule accounts

New Delhi: Raids conducted by Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh Police have shown that transnational cyber criminals are facilitating money laundering as a service through illegal payment gateways created using mule bank accounts, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said on Monday.

"Some of the payment gateways identified during the 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," it said. A mule account is a bank account used to facilitate illegal activities.

The alert has been issued by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) and warned citizens "not to sell or rent" their bank accounts or company registration certificate or Udhyam Aadhaar Registration certificate to anyone.

"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," an official statement said.