The Pune metropolis police have arrested two cyber specialists for allegedly committing a multicrore cryptocurrency seizure rip-off when their assist was sought by the cops for investigating a cryptocurrency fraud which was unearthed in 2018. The accused have been recognized as Pankaj Prakash Ghode (38) and Ravindranath Prabhakar Patil (45).
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In April 2018, the Pune metropolis police had busted a racket during which a number of individuals had been cheated by providing profitable returns by investing cash in cryptocurrency. IPS officer Rashmi Shukla was the commissioner of Pune metropolis police at the moment. Two FIRs had been lodged at Dattawadi and Nigdi police stations for probing the fraud, underneath sections 406, 409, 420, 120 b, 109, 201 of the IPC and sections of the Maharashtra Safety of Curiosity of Depositors (MPID) Act.
Police had arrested as many as 17 individuals in these instances and assist was sought from cyber specialists Pankaj Ghode of “World Blockchain Basis, Pune” and Ravindra Patil of the “Ok P M G, Pune” for gathering technical proof and seizure of cryptocurrency.
A press launch issued on Saturday said that “Further director basic of police (Financial offences), Maharashtra had ordered an inquiry because the position of cyber specialists in seizure of cryptocurrency from the accused individuals was discovered to be suspicious.” Accordingly, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber and EOW) Bhagyashree Navtake carried out an inquiry.
The discharge talked about that, “Ghode and Patil had seized 241.47858055 bitcoins, 452 bitcoin money and 94.254124 both from the accused individuals. The then investigating officers had handed over technical information recovered from the accused individuals to the cyber specialists….they had been supposed to point out utmost sincerity {and professional} ethics. However Patil allegedly misused the technical information and transferred cryptocurrency from the nationwide and worldwide wallets of the accused to the crypto foreign money wallets of his and different aides. Additionally, Ghode allegedly misled the investigating officers by forging the screenshots of the pockets blockchain throughout seizure of panchanama.
He hooked up the faux screenshots for investigation functions,” it said.
It additional stated the cyber specialists didn’t seize all of the cryptocurrency recovered from the accused individuals and cheated the federal government by producing false details about the seizures. So, a contemporary offence of dishonest and forgery has been lodged in opposition to Ghode and Patil. Inspector Jayant Rajurkar (42) of crime department lodged an FIRat the cyber police station on Friday. The 2 accused had been arrested and produced earlier than a court docket on Saturday which remanded them to police custody until March 19. Accused Patil is a former IPS officer of 2005 batch, who left police service after working for just a few years.