It was a timely action taken by the banking regulator Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Cybercrime Cell of Pune Police on bitcoins.
On the basis of FIR registered by the cyber team of Pune and Nanded Police, the ED has registered its first enforcement case investigation report (ECIR) in India against Gainbitcoin and few other entities/individuals under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Mumbai.
Meanwhile, the cyber cell of Pune arrested eight persons for running a ponzi scheme of bitcoins. All arrested were running a multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes with an offer of unreal gains to investors.
Amit Bhardwaj, CEO of GainBitcoin and the main mastermind behind this racket, was the latest catch for Pune Police.
On March 15, on the complaint of Bhimsen Agarwal, the Cybercrime Cell of Pune Police had registered an FIR against Amit Bhardwaj, Ajay Bhardwaj, Rupesh Singh, Hemant Chauhan, Hemant Suryavanshi, Kaka Ravde and others, under Sections 406, 420 and 34 of IPC.
Earlier, on January 2018, similar criminal case was registered against Balaji Panchal, Raju Motewar, Amol Kumar and Amit Bhardwaj under the same sections, on the complaint of one professor P L Patil.
Sources said, third FIR was been registered against all these accused in Janakpuri, Delhi, during March 2018. One Tarun Kumar had lodged a criminal complaint against Amit Bhardwaj, Pankaj Adlakha, Vivek Adlakha, Kamal Gupta, Aman Bhatia, Manjeet Singh and Variable Tech Pvt Ltd (entity), u/s 420/120 B/406 of IPC, 1860 and 66 of IT Act, 2000.
All eight persons have been arrested for the commission of offences for creating, developing, holding fake crypto-currency and fake websites as well as for offences of criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery, criminal intimidation and criminal conspiracy.
These accused were falsely inducing and alluring investors to invest in bitcoins scheme called “GB21” on their website www.gainbitcoin.com, which is owned by Variable Tech Pvt Ltd, registered at Singapore. The investors were assured guaranteed return of 10 per cent every month (totally 180 pc returns per annum) for a continuous period of 18 months in bitcoins for the purpose of “cloud mining of bitcoins”.
The gang claimed to have massive cloud mining setup in China, Hong Kong and Singapore. In Delhi itself, from January 2017 to till date – as per the complaints registered, investment of around 147.4 bitcoins on www.gainbitcoin.com, for which the total return promised to the complainants were around 300 bitcoins i.e. Rs 30 crore.
“Once the money and bitcoins were delivered by the complainants to the accused persons, they stopped responding to the requests and calls of the complainant and never gave the promised and assured returns to the investors,” the FIR stated which was filed with Delhi Police. The copies of all three FIRs are in possession with Indiatoday.in.
All over India, cybercrime sleuths are tracking as many as 27 related cases of duping. Sources said, close to 8,000 investors have been duped by the gang, by offering lucrative bitcoin scheme.
The accused have also been booked for cheating and sections of Information Technology Act, Prize Chits Fund and Money Circulation schemes (Banning) Act and relevant sections of the Maharashtra Protection of Investors Deposit (MPID) Act.
On Thursday afternoon, in its first bi-monthly monetary policy of year 2018-19, RBI banned all those entities, with immediate effect from “dealing with or providing services to any individuals or business entities dealing with or settling virtual currencies”.
RBI announced that any entity regulated by them such as banks, wallets etc. shall not deal with or provide services to any individual or business entities for buying or selling of crypto currency, such as bitcoins. As a result, prices of bitcoins are expected to crash to significant level in next three months. (Source India Today)
