Bitcoin fraud: Cops file chargesheet

CHANDIGARH: The Chandigarh police filed a chargesheet against two persons who were arrested for duping a city-based businessman of around Rs10 crore on the pretext of investing in cryptocurrency bitcoin. The accused against whom the chargesheet has been produced are identified as Sanchit of Delhi and Rajesh Kumar alias Raju of Rajasthan.


Both the accused were arrested from Delhi, Police said that the duo had direct links with main accused Amit Bhardwaj. They were involved in transferring funds from various fake accounts to Bhardwaj’s. Reportedly, the duo had developed code language and had transferred more than Rs 30 lakh to various accounts of the main accused.

Police has registered an FIR against eight persons involved in the cheating case. While four of them have been arrested, others are on the run. Main accused Amit Bhardwaj and his brother Vivek Bhardwaj are in a Delhi prison and would be brought to Chandigarh on production warrants for further interrogation in the case.

The sections under which the chargesheet has been filed are Section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 406 (punishment for criminal breach of trust), 120 B (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 66 (computer related offences) of the IT Act. A copy of the challan would be given to the accused by the next hearing date after which the trial would begin.

Case history

The cyber cell of UT police had registered an FIR in connection with the duping of a city-based businessmen of Rs 10 crore on the pretext of investing in bitcoin. Following this, the police had booked Amit Bhardwaj and others, who had been already arrested by the Delhi police. Acting on the complaint of an ex-serviceman, the cyber cell sleuths nabbed Amit Bhardwaj, owner of Gain Bitcoin and others for duping the complainant by assuring him handsome returns on investing in bitcoin.

The mastermind

Amit Bhardwaj and his brother Vivek have duped around 8,000 persons to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore all over country under the ruse of bitcoin investment. Both were earlier arrested by the Delhi police from the Indira Gandhi International Airport last year. They had been lodged in a Pune jail after their arrest. According to the police, the victim stated in his complaint that he had met Amit through a Sector 49 resident in Dubai in 2016 and the conman lured him by offering a high profit if he would buy and invest in bitcoin.

Pune connection

The complainant told police that when he heard that the Pune police had arrested Amit Bhardwaj and others for duping thousands of people, he checked his online account, but there wasn’t a single bitcoin in there. He filed a complaint with the UT cyber cell following which the police registered an FIR against Amit and eight others in the case.

Police said that they would bring Amit on production warrant from Pune police for further interrogation. Around 12 persons from the Tricity have approached them and filed complaints against the accused in similar fraud cases.



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