Cryptocurrency fraud: 4 dupe bizman, friends of ₹1.11 crore, arrested

MUMBAI : City crime branch officers on Friday arrested four members of a gang that allegedly cheated a Surat-based businessman and his friends to the tune of ₹1.11 crore under the pretext of investing their money in cryptocurrency.

The arrested accused were identified as Sanjay Sontakke, Rajnikant Kubavat, Alpesh Bharodiya and Kirankumar Pansara. Crime branch unit-12 officials arrested them from Surat. They were remanded to nine days in police custody after being produced in court.

Police said complainant Umeshchandra Jain, a resident of Surat, had, along with his friends invested ₹1.11 crore between December 2016 and December 2017. Jain in his police complaint said the accused had promised him and his friends to double their money in 60 days if they followed their advice.

To gain the victims’ trust, they showed them websites of some of the companies in which the accused had purportedly invested. They would log in to these websites using their ID and password and collect cryptocurrency. They told the victims that they had invested money in cryptocurrency and made profit. The accused also conducted seminars in Delhi, Mumbai and Surat explaining to probable investors how investment in cryptocurrency can generate good returns.

This convinced Jain and his friends and they invested money through cheques. However, the accused later defaulted on payment on the stipulated time. They also began ignoring the complainant and other investors. When the victims visited those websites the accused had showed them earlier, they found them to be shut. Jain and his friends soon approached the Mumbai crime

branch with a complaint.

As one of the monetary transactions was linked to a Malad based bank account, the crime branch registered a complaint at Dahisar police station and initiated an investigation. Officials scanned through the bank transaction details and zeroed in on some suspects in Surat on Friday.

Four of them were detained and brought to Mumbai and subsequently placed under arrest after they reportedly admitted to their roles in the crime.

However, the lawyer of the accused rubbished the police’s claims. “There is no cheating done in the case. Sections 420 and 409 of the IPC do not apply on my clients. They are falsely implicated in the case,” said advocate Ajay Umapati Dubey, representing Bharodiya and Pansara.