Cops not serious, say bitcoin scam victims

Chandigarh, December 6

Two complainants in the Bitcoin scam have moved an application praying for reinvestigation of the matter. A local court has thus issued a notice to the UT police, seeking their reply.

The complainants, Amandeep Singh and Manoj Garg, both residents of the city, alleged that the police were not taking the matter seriously. The case should be thoroughly investigated as it could be a bigger scam. It was also alleged that the police were showing a casual attitude in the case, which would provide undue benefit to the accused.

Amit Bhardwaj, a bitcoin entrepreneur, had allegedly duped a number of people of Rs 2,000 crores. Sources said three traders had approached the UT police alleging that they had invested 250 bitcoins on Amit’s advice, who had assured them of huge returns. However, they neither got returns nor bitcoins.

The victims had purchased bitcoins from some website. Later, someone introduced them to Amit, who lured them to invest their bitcoins further into mining and transferred their bitcoins to him. Sanchit and Rajesh, the co-accused, had allegedly developed a code language and also stated to have transferred more than Rs 30 lakh to various accounts of the main accused. The application stated that many other accused were not yet made party in the case.

One of the complainants stated that the main accused had met him in Dubai and told him to invest in bitcoins. The complainant was told that the money would also be invested in mining. Later, the complainant realised that he was cheated, following which he lodged a complaint with the UT police. Charges have been framed in the case under Sections 420, 406 and 120B of the IPC and Section 66 of the IT Act. — TNS