Cryptocurrency market has been volatile with people experiencing very high gains and some very worst crashes. RBI has issued a statement earlier that it has not given any company authority or license to operate in the cryptocurrency space in India and have cautioned people about several fraudulent elements. In spite of various such warnings, people have been investing in cryptocurrencies under the impression of ‘making money quick’.
In India, many people do not understand the concept of cryptocurrencies other than the fact that it can be used to make huge amounts of money. Hence, it has become an advantage for various imposters to lure others in the pretext of investing money in cryptocurrencies and making them rich but ends up cheating them of lakhs of rupees. DCP Bhisham Singh of Crime Branch, Delhi has been operative in catching and putting a stop to various such people and Ponzi schemes by which many have lost a huge sum of money.
During one such incident, his team managed to nab a 32-year-old man on December 2017 belonging to a gang which was responsible for cheating thousands of people under a fake cryptocurrency coin, ‘Kashh Coin’.
According to the police, this gang used to make promises that the Kashh Coin would go up soon and they started selling a coin at Rs. 3.50. They conducted seminars and brought in prominent celebrities to create an impression of trustworthiness and got people to invest in the coins through a website. One such investor, Arun Kumar, had lodged a complaint with the police that he had been cheated of Rs.25 lakhs. On following the trail, they found various other people who had been cheated and finally caught Narendar, who has also named the other accused in the case but is still at large.
He has been instrumental in these investigations and to catch the fraudulent people. In Delhi, three traders registered a case with the police that their computers have been hacked and encrypted by hackers and they were demanded to give ransom in bitcoins to release their documents in January 2018. Though there were formal complaints from three traders, on further enquiry it was found that many such traders have also been victims of these hackers. The police have confirmed this hacking and are suspecting it to be originating from Nigeria or Pakistan. The team is now examining the hard disks obtained from these computers.
The Cyber Cell team of Crime had nabbed yet another two persons on February 2018 who were cheating people under the false pretence of a trading in cryptocurrency RHF Coin, which they claimed was from the Rosneft, an oil-based company. “Rosneft is a Russia-based oil company and has no links with the accused or Rosneft Hedge Fund. The oil company has stated clearly on its website that it is not in partnership with any company that promises returns on small investments in a very short span of time,” said Bhisham Singh.
The accused, Sandeep Kaushik and Ashish Malik launched Rosneft Hedge Fund in 2016 and introduced the fake cryptocurrency, RHF Coin or RHF Gold, which was offered at Rs.3.50 per coin. They duped people into investing huge sums of money on the false impressions of large growth in the market. The mastermind behind this, Ajay Hari Nath is still at large. Under RHF, the gang had cheated people of around Rs. 20 crores. They organized seminars in big hotels and invited people to learn more about RHF and also brought in various celebrities to be the face in the seminar. They would take payments in the form of bitcoin, cheque or cash and convert it into the fake cryptocurrency.
In another case, the team busted an international syndicate of debit card cloners on February 6th, 2018. The money taken from the ATM machines was converted into cryptocurrency and was distributed among the members of the gang. The police managed to nab Nasir Ansari when he was taking money from the ATM. He told that he was sending the money to Sheikh in Dubai through a middleman, Bhardwaj. After a brief inquiry, police nabbed Bhardwaj, who accepted that he was sending the money in the form of bitcoins to Sheikh and Sheikh would procure data related to debit cards and pass it on to Ansari through him. The police are still looking for Sheikh in Dubai.
Under his leadership, the Crime Branch of Delhi has been able to nab various fraud people and fake companies and helped people get back crores of rupees cheated from them. A valuable asset to the Crime Branch, it is with no doubt that, Singh’s involvement in the cases has been a vital element in bringing many accused to justice and help other people from getting cheated.
A big salute to DCP Bhisham Singh, who is playing an important role in mitigating the frauds happening under the name of cryptocurrencies.
Various such rackets have been under the radar of the Indian government for quite some time and have been tarnishing our country’s name in front of the global crypto fraternity. It is high time that these fraudulent elements are curbed as Indian Police have been quite active in pursuing and putting a stop to various such rackets operating all over India.