On Sunday, Chhattisgarh police achieved a breakthrough under Operation Cyber Shield, arresting four accused in Raipur in connection with a sprawling mule-account network orchestrated by Chinese nationals. The investigation uncovered transactions amounting to crores of rupees flowing through over 500 bank accounts, and revealed the suspects had cheated more than 500 victims across multiple Indian states. Raids were carried out at two sites—Gole Chowk (Dagania) and Katora Talab—and the syndicate’s fake offices were sealed. The accused ran fraudulent matrimonial websites such as erishtaa.com, jeevanjodi.com, and royalrishtey.com, using deceptive photos to lure victims into making payments. Cases were registered under various provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita: 79 mule accounts at DD Nagar police station, 17 at Azad Chowk. Forensic scrutiny of mobile phones and transaction logs showed that mule accounts were procured, controlled, and operated remotely via APKs by Chinese operatives, with the Indian agents earning commissions per transaction. The police are gathering ongoing intelligence from banks and expect more arrests in the supply chain of these accounts. The four arrested—Gajsingh Suna (32) from Balangir, Odisha; Bhikhu Sachdev (32) from Dwarka, Gujarat; Sahil Kaushik (23) from Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh; and Harshit Sharma (18) from Raipur—have been remanded to judicial custody. Seized items include 50 mobile phones, 10 desktop computers, SIM cards, and some 60 bank account kits.