Five booked for duping 367 in ₹3 crore crypto fraud

Five people of a cryptocurrency investment firm have been booked for allegedly duping 367 people, including serving and retired policemen, doctors, lawyers - to the tune of ₹3 crore

Mumbai Five people of a cryptocurrency investment firm have been booked for allegedly duping 367 people, including serving and retired policemen, doctors, lawyers - to the tune of ₹3 crore.

The victims invested money and roped in other investors to earn some commission. They said that they could see money being deposited in their e-wallet accounts, but were allowed to withdraw it for 20 months (AFP)

Police officers said that one of the accused was arrested by Pune police last month. “We will soon get his custody. The directors of the firm, Bitsolive, are believed to be based in Dubai and London,” the officers added.

The accused allegedly lured victims with the promise of high returns on investments in a cryptocurrency called Buxcoin. The victims invested money and roped in other investors to earn some commission. They said that they could see money being deposited in their e-wallet accounts, but were allowed to withdraw it only after 20 months. However, when this period was over, the victims neither got their principal amount nor the profit.

The accused have been identified as Ganesh Sagar, Prashant Brahmbhatt, Chandrashekhar Bali, Anuj Ojha and Mohsin Jameel. Sagar, Brahmbhatt and Bali are directors in the firm, while Pune-based Ojha is its administrative head. Jameel is the owner of a blockchain developer firm Bull Infotech that developed Bitsolive. Sagar has been in the field of network marketing for the past 16 years, states the FIR.

The complainant Chhabu Ighe, 60, who retired from Mumbai police force as assistant sub-inspector in 2020, earlier used to live in Ghatkopar East and has since shifted to Nashik. In February 2018, Ighe, through a friend Vinod Salve, came in contact with Manoj Koshti, who resides in Railway police colony, Ghatkopar East.

Koshti informed Ighe and Salve about investment schemes in the virtual currency, Buxcoin, and asked them to attend a seminar. In the seminar, Vikash Chavan, Ranjit Jadhav, Prakash Chaudhary and Afroz Shaikh explained how investing in the cryptocurrency scheme through Bitsolive was beneficial for them.

Ighe and his friend were told that the company in 2017-18 had conducted seminars in Malaysia, Dubai and Goa, which were attended by thousands from across 10-12 countries.

“The complainant and his friends were told that if they invested in Buxcoin, they would become millionaires and they should rope in more investors as it’s a chain system. On every new investor, the introducer investor will get 10 per cent commission. More the number of investors, more will be the profit. The said monetary benefit will be credited on the investor’s ID 70% in Euro form and 30% in Buxcoins, which could also be used in forex trading,” the complainant stated in the FIR.

“The accused claimed that before this, no coin in the world can be used for foreign trading, so if the investors use more and more Buxcoin for forex trading, then demand for Buxcoin would go up across the globe and its value will shoot up.

The accused also told investors that the company would soon launch its own exchange cash finex, after which investors would be able to convert Buxcoin with dollars and other currencies.

In May 2019, Bull Infotech’s owner Mohsin Jameel conducted a Zoom meeting and informed the investors that a new e-wallet QT would soon be introduced on Bitsolive’s website and if the investors transfer Buxcoin in that wallet, then those coins would undergo mining and the number of coin would increase and the investors would be benefitted.

But even after completion of the 20-month period, the complainant and other investors did not benefit. When investors asked the director of the company about their money, they said that the pandemic adversely impacted their investment model. The company directors later during their seminars kept on promising that the investors would get their profits, which never happened.

After learning about the arrest of the company director Ganesh Sagar by the Pune police, the investors in Mumbai approached Pantnagar police and filed a complaint.