India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) team has reportedly retrieved information from Pune police on crypto fraud. The cryptocurrency fraud is the same case in which former IPS officer Ravindra Patil and cyber expert Pankaj Ghode were arrested in March.
In addition to taking updates on the police’s progress in the investigation of the Patil and Ghode case, the ED team took details of the FIR registered against them.
The cyber police have seized cryptocurrencies worth Rs 6 crore from Patil’s e-wallets. No recoveries have yet been made from Ghode. Both the accused are detained in Pune’s Yerawada jail under magisterial custody.
Deputy Commissioner of Cyber Police, Bhagyashri Navatake stated, “The Enforcement Directorate officials are in touch with the Pune city police and we shall share all the details of the case with them. On Monday, we questioned Ajay, the brother of prime suspect Amit Bhardwaj. But he did not cooperate with us.”
It is worth noting that the Supreme Court of India too had asked Ajay Bharadwaj, the co-accused in the GainBitcoin scam, to reveal details of his crypto wallet to ED and was directed to cooperate.
Patil was associated with a private foreign firm, involved in investigating online frauds after quitting from the police department. He was involved to help the city police in the probing of the crypto fraud cases registered with Dattawadi and Nigdi police stations in 2018.
Navtake further revealed that the police has issued a CrPC Section 41A notice to the private company under which the firm has to appear before the police for further probe. She further shared that Patil was working with the firm at the time of the arrest.
The city police accused Ghode and Patil of distorting the screenshots of crypto transactions from Amit’s e-wallets(the main suspect) and others to show fewer number of cryptocurrencies and transfer most of them to their own e-wallets.
As crypto’s integration in the financial portfolio of the Indian masses continues to increase, so do the cases of crypto scams! Recently, a Pharma executive Harshad Patel from the Indian city of Ahmedabad was duped of Rs 22 lakh by his business partner and three of his aides.
