Have reports of terrorists being trained to carry out operations through sea: Navy chief
New Delhi : Weeks after the Pulwama attack, Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba on Tuesday warned that there are reports about terrorists being trained to carry out operations through the sea.
Addressing a gathering of global experts at the Indo-Pacific Regional Dialogue here, Lanba said the Pulwama attack was perpetrated by extremists that were "aided by a State" that seeks to destabilise India.
"We also have reports of terrorists being trained to carry out operations in various modus operandi, including through the medium of the sea," he said.
The 26/11 attack was carried out by 10 sea-borne terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, who hijacked an Indian fishing trawler to reach Mumbai and unleash mayhem.
The Navy chief said this part of the world had witnessed multiple forms of terrorism in recent years and few countries in the region had been spared.
The global nature that terrorism has acquired in the recent times has further enhanced the scope of this threat, Lanba said.
India, however, faces a "far more serious" version of "state-sponsored" terrorism, he said.
"We recently saw the horrific scale of the extremist attack in Jammu and Kashmir about three weeks ago. This violence was perpetrated by extremists aided and abetted by a State that seeks to destabilise India," the Navy chief said without naming Pakistan.
On February 14, a suicide bomber of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a bus in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district, killing 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel.
"We have seen how quickly terror groups evolve across the globe. A particular brand of terror can well become a global problem in near future," Lanba warned.
The Indian security establishment is continuously working to address this menace, he said, noting that "it is imperative that the global community works in concert to contain and eliminate terrorism in all its forms".
Lanba also emphasised the importance of the Indo-Pacific Region. "There is a renewed focus of the world on the seas. This is principally due to the geoeconomic and geopolitical significance of the maritime domain."
India is a martime nation and, recently, there have been an increasing attention to harness potential of the maritime domain for the country's growth and regional development, he said.
This event seeks to "identify and conceptualise challenges and opportunities that lie in the waters, and evolve strategy for mutual benefits of all stakeholders," Lanba said.
"It is widely accepted that (the) Indo-Pacific Region has been growing in geopolitical significance in recent years due to economic, political and other reasons," he said.
Lanba underlined the region's ancient and historical link with India and its significance for the country.
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CBI chargesheets 4 Chinese behind Rs 1,000 cr cyber crime racket; 111 shell companies unmasked
New Delhi (PTI): The CBI has filed a chargesheet against 17 people, including four Chinese nationals, and 58 companies for their alleged roles in a transnational cyber fraud network that siphoned off over Rs 1,000 crore through a sprawling web of shell entities and digital scams, officials said on Sunday.
After busting the racket in October, investigators unravelled a single, tightly coordinated syndicate that relied on an elaborate digital and financial infrastructure to run a range of frauds. These included misleading loan applications, fake investment schemes, Ponzi and multi-level marketing models, bogus part-time job offers and fraudulent online gaming platforms.
According to the probe agency's final report, the group layered the flow of illicit funds through 111 shell companies, routing about Rs 1,000 crore via mule accounts. One account received more than Rs 152 crore in a short span.
The shell companies, the CBI said, were incorporated using dummy directors, forged or misleading documents, fake addresses and false statements of business objectives.
"These shell entities were used to open bank accounts and merchant accounts with various payment gateways, enabling rapid layering and diversion of proceeds of crime," a CBI spokesperson said in a statement.
Investigators traced the origins of the scam to 2020, when the country was grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. The shell companies were allegedly incorporated at the direction of four Chinese handlers -- Zou Yi, Huan Liu, Weijian Liu and Guanhua Wang.
Their Indian associates procured identity documents from unsuspecting individuals, which were then used to establish the network of shell companies and mule accounts to launder proceeds from the scams and obscure the money trail.
The investigation exposed communication links and operational control that, the agency said, nailed the role of Chinese masterminds running the fraud network from abroad.
"Significantly, a UPI ID linked to the bank accounts of two Indian accused was found to be active in a foreign location as late as August 2025, conclusively establishing continued foreign control and real-time operational oversight of the fraud infrastructure from outside India," the CBI statement said.
The probe found that the racketeers employed a highly layered, technology-driven modus operandi, using Google advertisements, bulk SMS campaigns, SIM-box-based messaging systems, cloud infrastructure, fintech platforms and multiple mule bank accounts.
"Each stage of the operation -- from luring victims to collection and movement of funds -- was deliberately structured to conceal the identities of the actual controllers and evade detection by law enforcement agencies," the spokesperson said.
The chargesheet names 17 individuals, including the four Chinese nationals, and 58 companies.
The investigation was launched on the inputs from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs, which flagged large-scale cheating of citizens through online investment and employment schemes, resulting in the arrest of three individuals in October.
"Though initially appearing as isolated complaints, detailed analysis by CBI revealed striking similarities in applications used, fund-flow patterns, payment gateways and digital footprints, pointing towards a common organised conspiracy," the agency said.
Following the October arrests, the CBI conducted searches at 27 locations across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Haryana, seizing digital devices, documents and financial records that were later subjected to detailed forensic examination.
