Fraud Briefing

The Directorate of Enforcement's Dehradun Sub-Zonal Office conducted search operations at multiple locations in Dehradun under PMLA 2002, part of an ongoing money laundering probe into the 2016 UKSSSC Gram Panchayat Vikas Adhikari recruitment examination scam, in which OMR answer sheets were allegedly tampered with to boost candidate scores. Assets seized: Rs. 32 lakh in unaccounted cash, 200.5 grams of gold, and 12 luxury watches including Rolex, Rado, and Piaget; bank accounts worth Rs. 52.16 lakh were frozen, taking total assets to approximately Rs. 1.28 crore.

Fraudsters impersonate police officers, government officials, or bank representatives, telling victims they are under investigation for money laundering or serious crimes. Victims are kept on continuous video calls and coerced into transferring large sums under threat of immediate arrest. In August-September 2026, criminals also used AI-generated voices, deepfake video impersonation, and fake banking websites hosted on Google Firebase to bypass detection, alongside QR-code manipulation, fake cashback links, and malicious app installs. India processed approximately 242 billion real-time digital payment transactions in FY 2025-26, giving fraudsters a large target surface.

Bhavesh Patel, Dipeshkumar Patel, and Abhaykumar Nayak of Valsad, Gujarat were arrested by Gujarat Police's Cyber Centre of Excellence after a raid at Udwada, Valsad. They opened savings accounts in their own names and handed the account kits to cyber-fraud operatives, who used the accounts to receive and layer proceeds from task fraud, investment fraud, and online job fraud targeting victims across Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Rajasthan. Total fraud linked to the accounts: Rs. 1,24,79,156.