ED to collect probe papers from Pune Police in Rs 6 crore cryptocurrency fraud case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) sought co-operation of Pune Police in investigating the Rs 6 crore bitcoin fraud case currently being probed by the cyber crime department of Pune Police. The city police arrested cyber crime expert Pankaj Ghode and former IPS officer Ravindra Patil in March and found a few hundred bitcoins missing from their e -wallets during the investigation.

DCP ( Economic Offences Wing and cyber cell ) Bhagyashree Navtake said “ED wants to investigate the case and have approached Pune Police. They had come to the Pune CP office and wanted cooperation from us. Informally they took some information and they will take papers in some days ,” she said.

The Pune police had taken assistance from two cyber experts to help them investigate the Rs 2,000 crore cryptocurrency scam involving its mastermind Amit Bharadwaj and others in two FIRs lodged at Nigdi and Dattawadi police stations in 2018.

According to the latest FIR lodged against the cyber experts, the police had assigned them the task of recovering bitcoins from the wallets of the accused and shared data with them.

Both Patil and Ghode manipulated the screenshots of e wallets of cryptocurrencies in possession of the main accused and others and moved a large number of bitcoins to their personal e-wallets.The tampered screenshots of bitcoin recovery were submitted as proof to the police as part of their investigation report.

The cyber police had arrested them from Pune and seized a number of mobiles, MacBooks, hard disks, tabs, laptops, CDs, and other items from their possession on charges of stealing bitcoins for their financial gains while assisting the police during investigation.

A case under Sections 409 ( Criminal breach of trust by public servant or by banker, merchant or agent ), 420 ( cheating ) , 465 ( forgery ) , 468 ( forgery for purpose of cheating ), 471 (whoever fraudulently or dishonestly uses as genuine any 1[document or electronic record ) , and 34 ( common intention ) of the Indian Penal Code along with Sections 66(c) of Information Technology Act and Sections 3 and 4 of Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors was lodged at the cyber police station. Currently both of them are in judicial custody.

Meanwhile the cyber crime cell has issued a notice under section 41 A ( notice of appearance before police officers ) to the private company where IPS Patil was an employee.