“The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has made the sixth arrest in a money-laundering investigation linked to an alleged pan-India cyber fraud and digital arrest case involving transactions worth ₹30,000 crore,” official sources said on Saturday (October 17, 2026).
The agency had said in a statement that its probe in the case began following the registration of an FIR by Goa Police on June 9, 2025, after a Goa-based woman was allegedly duped into transferring ₹2.60 crore between May 21, 2025, and June 2, 2025, into some “secret supervision accounts” by cyber fraudsters following her digital arrest. “The bank accounts of these entities have been identified across as many as 300 cyber fraud complaints and 163 FIRs filed by police and other law enforcement agencies across 20 States and Union Territories, involving an aggregate reported loss of ₹417.49 crore,” the ED said.
The ED found that the money cheated from the Goa victim was put in 400 bank accounts, withdrawn in cash and then converted into foreign currency through RBI-licensed money changers.
Mukesh Kumar Pukhraj Jain alias Mukesh Bhai was taken into custody on Friday (October 16, 2026) and produced before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Panaji that sent him to ED custody till October 19, 2026, according to the sources. With this action, the total arrests made in the case by the Central agency’s Panaji office has risen to six.
