Hyderabad: Bitcoin fraud unearthed; kingpin held for cheating investors

Hyderabad: The cybercrime wing of Hyderabad Police on Thursday arrested a bitcoin fraudster who had cheated several persons on the pretext of giving them huge returns if invested in bitcoins. The accused was identified as Sirimalla Nagaraju.

According to police, the accused and his other friends formed a gang with an intention to cheat gullible persons on the pretext of offering them huge returns if they invest money online for bitcoin business. In such a way the gang spread all over the country and they cheated almost 1200 persons while earning Rs. 52 crore from the investors.

Investigating officer K Srinivas Rao said that the issue came to light when one Ramakrishna filed a complaint with the CCS and alleged that he was cheated by the said person.

"Based on his complaint the investigation began and it was revealed that the accused person was not alone in this business, in fact there are several others but they are not based in Hyderabad. The accused was in charge of Hyderabad and was given the responsibility to lure gullible persons to invest money online through their websites, Rosnefthedgefund.ru, rhfcoin.com, rhfgold.com, eurescoin.com and were promised huge returns after investing regularly for a period of 18 weeks," stated the officer.

The accused person cheated around 250 depositors in Telangana and accumulated Rs 10 crore from them. He was arrested under various sections of IPC and remanded to judicial custody"

Special teams have been formed to nab the other accused persons in the State and a letter has been written to the Union Home Ministry about the scam happening all over India on the pretext of bitcoins.