PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE /Dehradun
Uttarakhand police registered 208 FIRs and arrested 15 cyber criminals during a seven-day Statewide crackdown under Operation Hotspot aimed at stopping the financial channels used to move money stolen through cyber fraud. The operation was carried out across Uttarakhand from August 24 to September 1. Police focused on mule account operators, suspicious bank accounts, ATM withdrawal points, cheque withdrawal locations and telecom resources linked to cybercrime.
The additional director general of police (Law and Order), V Murugesan said while addressing a press conference in Dehradun on Thursday that they would not allow the State to become a soft target for cyber criminals while citing that Uttarakhand had secured the fourth position in cyber security in the Prime Minister’s all-India review.
Before launching the operation, Uttarakhand police and the Special Task Force had analysed data received from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The teams examined data from July 1 to 31 to identify suspicious financial and telecom links.
During the crackdown, police verified 820 suspicious bank accounts and registered 159 FIRs. They also checked 1,236 ATM withdrawal locations, leading to 32 FIRs. Another 84 cheque withdrawal locations were verified and 37 FIRs registered. Police also checked 22 suspicious SIM-POS locations and registered 10 FIRs.
The STF analysed around 1,600 mule accounts over the past six months, while action was taken after verification of 820 suspicious accounts.
Murugesan said that the second and third layers of cybercrime networks are difficult to trace, but the latest operation focused on the operators helping criminals move and withdraw stolen money.
In Haridwar, police busted the Nawada Group, an organised cyber fraud network and arrested five people, including three alleged mule-account operators. Investigators found links to more than 200 bank accounts and recovered over 45 ATM cards, 20 passbooks, two laptops and 17 mobile phones.
In another case in Kotdwar, police arrested an accused linked to an Rs 3.86 lakh Forex trading fraud. His eight bank accounts had received around Rs 1.50 crore in suspected cyber fraud money, of which Rs seven lakh was frozen. Police also blocked 644 suspicious SIM cards and 630 IMEIs during the operation. A total of 442 suspicious cases were verified.
Meanwhile, 18,749 cybercrime complaints received through the 1930 helpline and National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) in 2026 had helped the authorities hold or save around Rs 23.44 crore.
