What started as a seemingly routine fraud complaint by a 20-year-old job-seeker in Mumbai’s Malwani has unravelled one of India’s most sophisticated and sprawling cybercrime networks. The complainant, who received a shocking Rs 3.5 crore tax notice for companies she had never heard of, turned out to be an unsuspecting pawn in a digital laundering syndicate that used stolen identities, fake firms, and encrypted messaging apps to move over Rs 211 crore.

Exclusive documents and testimony accessed by mid-day reveal how the racket — allegedly operated by Indian nationals from Armenia — lured young job-seekers, exploited their personal documents to open mule bank accounts, and funnelled illicit funds through the banned gambling platform.

Malwani police busted a cyber-fraud racket where two men, Abhishek Pandey and Akash Vishwakarma, duped job seekers by collecting their documents under the pretext of offering jobs, then used those to set up fake companies and open bank accounts for laundering scam money. The duo was arrested on April 21.