At a time when people are getting attracted to invest in cryptocurrencies in hopes for high return, the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Nanded police is probing a case wherein as many as 50 traders were allegedly duped in a scheme related to Bitcoin.
A cheating case has been registered against Amit Bharadwaj, the founder of Gain Bitcoin, a Delhi based firm, and two local agents of the company - Raju Motewar and Amol Thombale - for allegedly duping 50 investors for 500 Bitcoins (valued at Rs 50 crore).
While the police have already arrested Thombale, others accused are untraceable.
According to the police, the company's local agents had recently conducted a seminar in Nanded where the traders were introduced about the Gain-bitcoin scheme and were lured to give 18% return per month on buying the bitcoin and saving in their e-wallet Application.
The police said following the seminar, around 50 traders had bought the bitcoins by paying the money and had opened the e-wallet account with the company.
For initial 3 months, everything went well and the investors got their share of return. However, the company allegedly stopped giving the return and asked the investors to transfer their bitcoins to another e-wallet.
However, after transfer of the bitcoins to another e-wallet application, the company informed investors that they would get back their Bitcoins in another form of cryptocurrency - MCap - which is created by the company. The rate of the currency is one dollar, while the Bitcoin's rate is Rs 10 lakh in international market.
The investors then realised that they were being cheated and one of them approached the police.
"One of the investors, Prashant Patil, a teacher by profession approached us and lodged a complaint. We have registered a cheating case and probing the matter further. As many as 50 people have invested in the scheme and have bought 500 Bitcoins," said Chandrakishor Meena, Superintendent of Police, Nanded.
"The accused had lured the victims of the high interest and big profit to take the money however after taking the money stopped all the transactions of the e-wallet application. Bharadwaj is currently in Dubai," said another police officer.
