Police seize 451.999 Bitcoins worth Rs 64L | Pune News

Pune: The cybercrime branch, investigating the multi-crore cryptocurrency scam, has recovered 451.999 Bitcoins, totally worth Rs 64 lakh, from one of the suspects in the Dattawadi case.
Jyoti Priya Singh, the deputy commissioner of police (cyber), said the Bitcoins were seized earlier this week. “The Bitcoins were seized from the e-wallet of Sahil Omprakash Bagla — a suspect from Delhi — after a digital forensic analysis of his account was done,” Singh said. Senior inspector Radhika Phadke and her team made the recovery.
Police have filed chargesheets against the 10 persons arrested in the fraud case, including the ringleader Amit Bharadwaj, city-based techie Akash Sancheti and others since January, this year. Bharadwaj and his brother Vivek were arrested by police after they were taken to Delhi from Dubai.

Bharadwaj used to run a company – GainBitcoin— through which he operated a phoney cryptocurrency investment scheme called GB21 and duped investors by guaranteeing 10% or more monthly returns. Bhardwaj and his associates used to hold workshops to lure investors, officials said. Police suspect around 8,000 investors in the city to have been swindled.

Before this recovery, the police had seized 32 Bitcoins, 79.99 ether (a crypto fuel) and cash amounting to Rs. 38.96 lakh from the accused. Police had suid that the accused still had at least 160 Bitcoins, 3,00,000 MCAP and 80,000 ethers in their possession.

In the past six months, many people have come forward with their complaints against Bharadwaj, Sancheti and others claiming that the ring had duped them by promising handsome returns. Police had registered two offences against the suspects with Dattawadi and Nigdi police stations and later a Special Investigation Team was formed after both the offences were clubbed together for a probe.

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