A 32-year-old man has been arrested by the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police’s Crime Branch for allegedly duping roughly 15,000 people to the tune of Rs 50 crore by selling fake digital currency with the name of Kashhcoin.
Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Alok Kumar said, “The arrested accused, Narender, alias Sonu Dahiya, is a resident of Sonipat in Haryana. Police said that with Narender’s arrest, role of seven to eight more persons is under radar of the police team
A senior investigator said the accused disclosed that he used to work as a property dealer but six years ago, in 2011, owing to financial losses, Narender started working as a multi-level marketing officer, along with several people. They first created a website and started organising seminars to publicise about the cryptocurrency among people in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Nagpur, Gujarat, Chandigarh, and Raipur. Narender said that film stars and even a self-styled god man attended the seminars to attract more people to invest in cryptocurrency.
“The accused said that they used to lure the victims by saying that these Kashhcoins were far better than Bitcoins. Pricing the Kashhcoin at Rs 3.50 each, several people were conned to believe that if they invested in these coins for five years, they would yield considerable profits,” said an officer of the Cyber Cell.
Across the world, people usually invest in digital currencies like Bitcoin, White light. However, the first written complaint was submitted to the Cyber Cell in August where Arun Kumar complained that he was duped of Rs 14 lakh on the pretext of earning profits on a cyrptocurrency.
“The said coins were initially launched with the price rate of Rs 3.50 per coin with a promise of high profit making for its buyers but presently these coins are of no use. During the course of investigation, the Cyber Cell received similar complaints that they too have been cheated in the name of Kashhcoin,” added the senior police officer.
During investigation, a team of Cyber Cell of Crime Branch led by Sandeep Malhotra and over all supervision of DCP (Crime) Bhisham Singh was formed to nab the cheats.
Over a span of three months, the team conducted raids in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
The team succeeded when on December 13, they nabbed Narender from Rithala area. Police said that they have 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 120 B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy) and 34 (Acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) IPC and 3 and 4 of the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978.