HP cryptocurrency scam: Kingpins splurged Rs 3.5 crore on exotic foreign trips of investors

Tribune News Service

Shimla, November 7

In their bid to lure investors and make them believe in the scheme, kingpins of multi-crore cryptocurrency scam arranged more than 2,000 foreign tours to overseas locations such as Dubai, Thailand and Baku besides other exotic locations and spent around Rs 3.5 crore on these trips.

To lure more investors, the kingpins rewarded best performing agents, who had connected maximum number of investors with the scheme, with tours to exotic foreign locations. They also lured people who had got heavy compensation amount in lieu of land acquisition for construction or widening of roads.

“The kingpins and their agents also lured government employees and those who had received heavy compensation amount in lieu of land acquisition for highways and road construction projects. They first become investors and later turned into agents by the kingpins to lure other investors to widen the network of the scheme and later duped them," said DGP Sanjay Kundu while talking to mediapersons here.

“In the recent 8 arrests in the scam, four police personnel were also involved. There are around 60 to 80 such investors or agents who have made profit of Rs 2 crore or more. They are on radar of SIT and will be arrested soon," he added.

"This is like a complex web and SIT has done a splendid job in unearthing it. We are following a top-down approach to apprehend the accused in the scam. SIT has so far freezed property worth Rs 12 crore, including property of Rs 3 crore in Mandi and Zirakpur, of one of the kingpins, Subhash who is absconding,” added the DGP.

Kundu further said, “A helpline was established especially for registration of complaints related to the scam and so far we have received 350 such complaints. These complaints will be examined minutely and action would be taken accordingly. Distinguishing between witnesses and accused in this case is a challenging task.”

“There are international and national linkages related to the scam and it is surprising that how transactions worth a whopping Rs 2,500 crore were conducted within a span of past over 4 years without the knowledge of banking and tax authorities. Even for a deposit of sum of Rs 50,000 or more gets detected by them. We have written to the central intelligence and taxation agencies to assist us on that front. So far there is no clarity on where did such a large amount go and do not know if it is being used for terror funding,” said Kundu.

"We have submitted the status report in High Court and it has expressed satisfaction about the investigation conducted so far. There are investors who are applying for anticipatory bails but were not granted by the court and directed that if there is evidence against them then 7-day notices be issued and then make arrests. We have decoded the websites and transactions made by scammers and whosoever have made profit from the scam would be arrested by the SIT," he added.

There are over one lakh investors and money to the tune of Rs 2500 crore is involved in the cryptocurrency scam that began in 2018. In this Ponzi-style, Multi-Level Marketing scam, the kingpins lured people with high returns on their investment on locally-designed bogus Cryptocurrency called Korvio Coin or KRO Coins and then widened the network by turning the investors into agents to further lure more investors only to dupe them later of their hard-earned money.

The SIT have been taking action against the perpetrators of the scam under Banning of Unregulated Deposits Schemes (BUDS) Act, 2019 which has legal provision of imprisonment of ten years.

SIT have so far arrested 18 persons, including four main kingpins Hemraj, Sukhdev, Abhishek and Arun, four police personnel and a forest guard. Another kingpin, Shubash who had fled the country to Dubai to evade arrest continues to remain absconded and SIT has been making efforts to apprehend him and sought assistance from the Bureau of Immigration of the central government in this regard.

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