India: Police arrest 10 over “work-from-home” bank-account racket used to move online betting money

Police in Bhiwandi, Thane district, Maharashtra, have arrested 10 men in a raid on a flat in Mumbai’s Aarey Colony, Goregaon, alleging they used bank accounts collected from job-seekers under a “work-from-home” pretext to route money for online betting and gaming websites. Officers seized more than 30 mobile phones, dozens of ATM cards, 40 SIM cards and four laptops; a Bhiwandi court remanded all 10 in police custody until 26 October.

The case was disclosed by Deputy Commissioner of Police Pawan Bansod of the Bhiwandi zone at a press conference on Thursday, 22 October 2026, and investigated by Bhoiwada police station.

How the accounts were collected

According to the police account reported by Free Press Journal, Mid-day and Marathi outlet Jai Maharashtra, a Bhiwandi resident filed a complaint on 17 October. He said a man identified only as Bhagwan Das had promised him and seven associates work-from-home employment, then took their bank passbooks, ATM cards, SIM cards, cheque books and other banking details.

Police say those accounts were then used without the holders’ informed consent to move money linked to online betting and gaming sites operating under the names “Khiladi” and “Anna555”. A local news account posted on X said the operation lured users to bet on share prices, gold, cricket and other events. The case is registered under Sections 318(4) (cheating) and 316(2) (criminal breach of trust) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, according to Mid-day, which cites an official statement.

The raid

Acting on technical leads, a team under Assistant Commissioner Milind Shinde, Senior Inspector Vikram Mohite and Inspector Deepak Jadhav traced the operation to a residential building in Aarey Colony, Goregaon, in Mumbai, where 10 men were arrested. The arrested men are aged 20 to 28 and come from Bihar (six), Jharkhand (two) and Chhattisgarh (two), according to the names and home states read out by police and reported by Jai Maharashtra.

Seizure counts differ slightly between outlets:

• Mobile phones: 32 (Free Press Journal, Mid-day, Jai Maharashtra) or 31 (Prime Time 24, Times Now Marathi)
• ATM cards: 49 (Free Press Journal, Jai Maharashtra) or 46 (Mid-day, Prime Time 24, Times Now Marathi)
• SIM cards: 40; laptops: 4 (all outlets)

Police have not disclosed how much money passed through the accounts. DCP Bansod said investigators are now tracing where the funds went, who else is involved, and whether the group is part of an interstate network. Senior Inspector Mohite is leading the investigation. The suspects have not been charged in court, and the man named in the complaint as the recruiter is not listed among those arrested.

Why it matters

The case shows a pattern Indian police and banks keep reporting: illegal betting operators rely less on their own accounts than on “mule” accounts rented or tricked out of ordinary people, often job-seekers. India’s Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, enacted in August 2025, bans online money games and bars banks and payment providers from processing payments for them, which makes third-party accounts more valuable to illegal operators. In this case, the sections reported so far are general cheating and breach-of-trust offences under the BNS, not offences under the gaming act. The account holders themselves are the complainants, so the case is being treated first as a fraud against them.