SUMMARY
The ED attached immovable and movable properties worth INR 97.79 Cr belonging to Raj Kundra, businessman and actor Shilpa Shetty’s husband, in connection with late Amit Bhardwaj’s Bitcoin Ponzi scam
The properties include a residential flat in Mumbai’s Juhu, presently in the name of Shetty, a bungalow in Pune and equity shares in the name of Kundra
The probe agency said that accused Simpy Bhardwaj, Nitin Gaur and Nikhil Mahajan are currently in judicial custody, while the main accused Ajay Bhardwaj and Mahendra Bhardwaj are still on the run
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached immovable and movable properties worth INR 97.79 Cr belonging to Raj Kundra, businessman and actor Shilpa Shetty’s husband, in connection with GainBitcoin scam.
The attached properties include a residential flat in Mumbai’s Juhu, presently in the name of Shetty, a bungalow in Pune and equity shares in the name of Kundra, the ED said in a statement.
The ED alleged its investigation in the GainBitcoin scam revealed that Kundra received 285 Bitcoins from the mastermind in the scam, (late) Amit Bhardwaj, for setting up a Bitcoin mining farm in Ukraine.
Kundra is still in possession of 285 Bitcoins, presently valued at more than INR 150 Cr, the probe agency said.
This comes six years after it was reported that Kundra might get a clear chit in the GainBitcoin scam probe. The ED had summoned Kundra in 2018 as part of its probe in the scam.
The scam came to the limelight after multiple FIRs were filed by Maharashtra and Delhi police against a company called Variable Tech Pte Ltd, along with its promoters, including Amit Bhardwaj, Ajay Bhardwaj, Vivek Bhardwaj, Simpy Bhardwaj and Mahender Bhardwaj. These people had collected INR 6,600 Cr in 2017 from their investors.
Earlier, Inc42 reported that the investors were initially paid off from the investments that came in from the new ones. However, the payments stopped when the Bhardwaj group could not rope in new investors.
They bought Bitcoins with the remaining money and hid them in obscure online wallets. The ED alleges that the investors hid their ill gotten Bitcoins from the investors, thereby cheating them.
Even though the probe is underway, the probe agency said that accused Simpy Bhardwaj, Nitin Gaur and Nikhil Mahajan are currently in judicial custody, while the main accused Ajay Bhardwaj and Mahendra Bhardwaj are still on the run.
It is pertinent to note that the Supreme Court (SC) had asked Ajay Bhardwaj to reappear before the ED back in April 2022 to submit the password and other wallet details.
The GainBitcoin scam is considered one of the biggest ponzi schemes globally, extracting a toll in excess of $2.7 Bn on gullible crypto investors worldwide.
According to a chargesheet filed by Pune Police, Amit and Vivek Bhardwaj set up Variable Tech in Singapore in 2014. This firm launched a crypto exchange called BitEx and later came out with the GainBitcoin multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme that offered Bitcoin mining contracts. Under these contracts, people were promised a 10% monthly return on every investment for 18 months, and the payout would be done in Bitcoin.
Meanwhile, Amit had also published a book called ‘Cryptocurrency For Beginners’. The book was lauded by Shetty on Twitter (now X) as well.
As the MLM scheme started flourishing, it became increasingly difficult to pay every investor the promised 10% returns in Bitcoin. At its peak, the company led 8,000 investors to lose their money in the scam.
