New Delhi The Home Ministry’s Indian Cyber ​​Crime Coordination Center (I4C) on Monday issued an alert against illegal payment gateways such as RTX Pay, Peace Pay, Pocco Pay and RPPay, which offer “money laundering as a service ” to transnational organized cybercriminals. These payment gateways use soft bank accounts to receive money from victims of cyber scams and then route it to criminal syndicates, often through a multi-layered network of bank accounts.

I4C advised not to sell or rent the bank accounts, company registration certificates and Udhyam Aadhaar registration certificate to anyone. “Illicit funds deposited in such bank accounts can lead to legal consequences, including arrest. Banks may implement checks to identify misuse of bank accounts that are used to set up illegal Payment Gateways,” the official I4C statement said.

To create such networks, the perpetrators first look for current and saving accounts on social networks, usually on Telegram and Facebook.

These mule accounts are then controlled by foreign nationals from overseas and used to create an illegal payment gateway. This gateway link is used by criminal syndicates to accept deposits on fake investment sites, fake stock trading platforms, offshore betting and gambling sites, etc.

As soon as victims deposit money into these accounts, the money is immediately transferred (“layered”) to another account. “Bulk payment facility provided by banks is being misused for the same,” I4C said.

HT saw two such Telegram channels for RTX Pay, one each for India and Vietnam. Details for the Indian channel were given in Mandarin and English. An image shared repeatedly on the Indian channel showed a plane with RTXPay written on it transferring money through UPI, Paytm and Bitcoin. Advertised real-time payouts and cashouts from ₹500 to ₹1 lakh on behalf of a third party (probably from the victims) and payments on behalf of a third party, from ₹500 to ₹2 lakh (probably to the union).