In a first-of-its-kind seizure in the country, Delhi Police’s Cyber
In a first-of-its-kind seizure in the country, Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell has busted a cryptocurrency mining unit in Dehradun where Ethereum coins were being “minted” and sold in the global market.
KPS Malhotra, DCP of the cyber cell, with an additional team which raided the complex in Dehradun which is 4,000 sq. ft. large, found a huge rig of crypto coins, along with including 500 graphics cards, servers and high powered computer processors.
An officer said that a complaint had been lodged by the Kumar against Alagh and his associates that they kidnapped him and this complaint help the officers to reach the accused. The ether was being mined and then had been sold by them in the global market. The websites are now defunct. The founders even showed him some online documents.
The probe has been attracted by the unit when Kamal Singh, a DU graduate and Vijay Kumar, an engineer who are the owners, were arrested in cryptocurrency racket on April 25th for duping the scores of people. The people nearby are being told that the mining rigs are computer processors unit which was servers of a big company. A local from Dehradun is also hired to take care and oversee the unit operations. Apart from bit2btc.com, they had also come up with their own cryptocurrencies-HBX and Mcap.
The team also found that a rift had emerged between the partners. The duo partners even filed a police complaint against Alagh. An officer said, “Kumar had lodged a complaint with the local police alleging that Alagh and his associates had kidnapped him.” He added that the complaint had led them to the accused. A manhunt is on for Alagh who is currently at large.
With the arrest of Amit Bhardwaj, several new bitcoin-based ponzi scams are coming to light. Cyber cell of Delhi Police has arrested founders of bits2btc Kamal Singh and Vijay Kumar for duping 2,500 people for over Rs 100 crore. During the investigation, police found that the trio had played important role in operations of Gainbitcoin. The mining unit run by them in Dehradun was for mining of Etherum coins. Like this, three of them also lure all the investors by promising them an unviable return on the amount invested by them. In fact, they have gone a step ahead by promising payout twice every month.
The irresistible offer had made several thousand people trapped into multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme. This scheme firstly asks enrolled members to get on board a fixed number of people only to invest which gives them a commission or cut out of that. Interestingly, they had also launched their own currency — HBX and Mcap. The company used to throw parties in lush five-star hotels in NCR region to woo investors.
Meanwhile, police have been conducting raids in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh (UP) to nab Alagh. Following the arrest of Singh and Kumar on April 25, police interrogation revealed that they had invested money made through scam in mining rig of crypto coins in Dehradun.
Police have recovered over 100 Ethereum rigs during the raid along with high-powered computer processors, servers and 500 graphics cards in Dehradun. Last month, notable entrepreneur and angel investors Nikunj Jain and Sahil Baghla were arrested on the grounds of having key connections with Bhardwaj and his company.
The duo Sing and Kumar were also the part of a conspiracy where they were working with Bhardwaj as partners. They built the portal – GBMiner, a BTC payment gateway, and mining pool.