Thane (Maha): The Thane Police have busted an online cryptocurrency racket, which had allegedly collected an estimated Rs 500 crore from people with promise of good returns, and has arrested one person, an official said Tuesday.
Some people had floated a company about a year back and launched their own cyrptocurrency called the ‘Money Trade Coin (MTC)’, through which they promised high returns and lured people to invest about Rs 500 crore into its schemes, the police official said.
However, the company allegedly failed to pay the promised sum to the investors.The accused allegedly posed as representatives of the Union Finance Ministry and had also prepared fake identity cards to cheat people, Thane Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh said at a press conference here.
Around 25,000 people fell prey to the accused and invested money in the company, he said. Based on a complaint by a New Delhi-based businessman, the police raided the company’s premises on the Ghodbunder Road in Thane and in suburban Vikhroli in the adjoining Mumbai Monday and subsequently nabbed a person, identified as Taha Kazi, from Mumbra town.
Singh said the police seized 53 laptops, rubber stamps and fabricated documents during the raids, Singh said.
Kazi, who was allegedly providing technical support to the company, was later arrested, another police official said.
The police are trying to ascertain the exact modus operandi of the company’s owners and how they used to run the racket.
A search is on for five others for their alleged involved in the racket, the police said.
A case has been registered against the accused under various Indian Penal Code sections for cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust and relevant provisions of the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act, the Chit Funds Act and the Information Technology Act.
Across the world, there have been heightened concerns over cryptocurrencies, also known as ‘virtual currencies’, such as Bitcoins as they are not regulated by any governments/central banks, leading to a fear of possible money laundering too.
The RBI had earlier come out with warnings to discourage the public from investing in virtual currencies. The RBI has also asked banks not to extend banking facilities for sale or purchase of such currencies.
ED grills Raj Kundra
Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate Tuesday questioned Raj Kundra, husband of actor Shilpa Shetty, in connection with a money laundering probe related to a bitcoin transactions case, officials said. The businessman was summoned at the ED office here and was asked questions about his involvement in the trade, termed as illegal by the government, they said. There are some instances of the case that are linked to Kundra and hence, he has been asked to record his statement, the officials said without
elaborating. The ED, sometime back, had registered a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against bitcoin-based investment website GainBitcoin, its founder Amit Bhardwaj and eight others. It is alleged that nearly 8,000 investors lost around Rs 2,000 crore funds by transacting in this scheme. The ED had filed its case based on an FIR of the Maharashtra Police in this case and the Pune Police arrested Bhardwaj and his brother Vivek from Delhi earlier. Bhardwaj reportedly was behind ventures like GainBitcoin, GBMiners, MCAP and GB21, and the investors were allegedly duped after transactions on these portals.