AI, Mule Accounts in Focus at CBI Cybercrime Meet

New Delhi: The CBI and the Union home ministry’s Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre will begin a two-day national conference on Tuesday with a focus on dismantling organised cybercrime networks, including the use of Artificial Intelligence to detect and block mule accounts used for laundering illicit funds.

The conference, titled “Tackling Cyber-Enabled Frauds & Dismantling the Ecosystem”, will be inaugurated by Union home minister Amit Shah, who will also launch the CBI’s new cybercrime branch and unveil the S4C Dashboard of I4C.

According to an official statement, the conference aims to evolve a coordinated national strategy to counter cyber-enabled frauds by targeting the infrastructure that supports them, particularly mule accounts, telecom misuse and organised human exploitation.

Senior officers from the CBI, Interpol, the Enforcement Directorate, I4C and other central and state agencies, along with cyber security experts and legal professionals, will participate in the deliberations. Officials from the Reserve Bank of India, Department of Telecommunications, Department of Financial Services, banks, fintech firms, payment platforms, telecom service providers, social media companies and cloud service intermediaries will also be part of the discussions.

The conference will focus on three core pillars underpinning organised cybercrime, financial systems, telecommunications infrastructure and human exploitation. Sessions will examine the growing use of mule account networks for laundering cybercrime proceeds, misuse of SIMs, eSIMs, VoIP systems and SIM boxes for anonymity and OTP interception, and the role of AI in both enabling and combating such crimes.

A key area of discussion will be “cyber slavery”, involving the recruitment of individuals through fake job offers and their coercion into working in scam compounds. The conference will also explore strengthening international cooperation through Interpol and frameworks such as the UN Cybercrime Convention and Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties.

The statement noted that India’s rapid digital transformation under the leadership of Narendra Modi has expanded access to banking, governance and communication, but has also created new vulnerabilities exploited by transnational cybercriminal gangs.

Participants will deliberate on national cybercrime trends, systemic weaknesses in telecom and financial systems, and measures to improve inter-agency coordination, faster fraud reporting, real-time fund tracing, evidence preservation and victim protection. Emphasis will also be placed on leveraging AI and data analytics to scale investigations amid manpower constraints.

The CBI said it has been investigating cybercrime since 2000 and strengthened its capabilities with the establishment of a Cybercrime Investigation Division in 2022, acting as the nodal agency for cases affecting the Central government.

The conference is expected to lay down actionable priorities for law enforcement and public-private collaboration to curb cyber-enabled frauds and dismantle organised criminal ecosystems.