Despite the surge in the value of Bitcoin, the employment of the asset to carry out illicit activities seems to have found no end. Bitcoin has been fighting hard to steer clear of its association with the dark web, however, Bitcoin is caught up in yet another scandal. The officials of the country with the world’s largest democracy recently took down an online sex chatting racket that involved Bitcoin.
One Man, 30 Bitcoin Addresses
In the city of Vadodara, a man claiming to be Architect, Nilesh Gupta was nabbed by the police. Gupta allegedly ran a comprehensive virtual sex chatting and video racket in Akota. The police had received a tip-off that pointed towards the direction of Hardik Chambers, an old building in Akota. Acting on the basis of this information, the police set out to raid the building where Gupta and two women were found. Both these women were hired for the online sex chatting platform.
Gupta wasn’t the only one that executed this. Ami Parmar helped Gupta in hiring the women under the false pretense of offering them a job at Gupta’s architecture firm, Ray Design World. The women hired by the firm were recruited from several parts of the country including, Vadodara, Surat, Junagadh, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh. These women were further urged to chat with men online which would be further intensified to pornographic video chats. All these women were aged between 18-25 years.
Gupta acquired money by sharing his content with, Chaturbate, a European pornographic website. Gupta resorted to Bitcoin as the website had created a native token to secure the customer’s identity. Over the course of the racket, Gupta had acquired up to 9.5 Bitcoins which is approximately 159607 USD. Sandeep Chaudhary, the Deputy Commissioner of Police elaborated on the same and said,
“The website used to deduct its own share and allow Gupta to encash the tokens for Bitcoins. We found 30 Bitcoin addresses used by Gupta and seized a wallet containing 9.5 Bitcoins.”
While Parmar is still on the run, the police have managed to secure over 19 passports of women along with 11 laptops. Webcams, internet routers, mobile phones, sex toys, televisions along with Gupta’s car had also been taken away by the police. The police currently hope to secure the 19 women whose passports were found.