Bitcoin frauds and scams have made multiple news stories since its inception and the scale at which it is progressing has also been recorded by multiple agencies and departments. The latest such scam to come out was from India, where cryptocurrencies are considered illegal.
According to reports, two people were arrested in Jaipur, India for running a large scale Bitcoin scam in the subcontinent. The two accused were 32-year-old Manoj Patel and 22-year-old Avika Mishra, individuals who knew how cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology worked. The arrest operation was conducted by the Special Operations Group [SOG] in Jaipur after an investigation that started on February 5. The group stated that the scam was worth anywhere between Rs 10 -15 crores.
India has been in the ropes of Bitcoin and other digital assets for some time now, with various Supreme Court debates taking place. The Reserve Bank of India [RBI] still considers cryptocurrencies as an illegal form of payment and that has also been conveyed to the banks that function within the country.
Anil Paliwal, the ADG, ATS, and SOG said:
“The two accused had opened a website claiming that they were Bitcoin traders. They would ask people to invest in their company and the promised the investors a profit of 1 percent per day. They also held seminars to motivate people for investing,”
The accused persons ran an organized gang to dupe people in the name of investment in Bitcoin trading. Patel and Mishra ensured that they received large investments from people and they grabbed most of the profits for themselves.
Both were able to amass enough money and then move to a foreign country. They were both caught red-handed during the process, and then taken into custody. The information about the arrest was made public by Anil Paliwal, the additional director-general of the anti-terrorism squad and special operations group.
Reports said the two guilty parties shut down their original business and then asked their customers to invest in another company rather than returning what was already owed. The rate at which cryptocurrency scams were growing in India has not surprised the followers of the industry. Some even predict that soon India will have a strong and robust cryptocurrency ecosystem that will enable it to filter out scammers.
Just recently, India also witnessed another cryptocurrency scam. Sandeep Singh Dua, a manager at Standard Chartered Bank was arrested for operating shell companies to avoid paying income tax. The capital was transferred into the shell companies using a fake cryptocurrency called Kashhcoin. According to some claims, Kashhcoin was invented by Asif Ashraf Malkani back in 2018.