Crypto Scam | 23-Year-Old Mumbai Management Graduate Arrested For Rs 1.5-Crore Fraud: Report

Seven people have already come forward with complaints, and investigators believe several more have been duped so far.

While crypto awareness has increased in India, it has also led to several scams and rug-pulls.

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Cryptocurrency is gradually catching the fancy of more and more investors as awareness of digital coins slowly grows in India. The country’s crypto market saw a growth of 641 percent between July 2020 and June 2021, as per Chainalysis data. However, this has also led to several cases of scams and rug-pulls, duping investors of lakhs and crores. On May 27, a 23-year-old management graduate was arrested by Charkop police for a Rs 1.5-crore crypto scam, as reported by The Times of India. Charkop is located in the suburb of Kandivali (West), North Mumbai.

The police said that the accused, Jagdish Ladi, has a BBA degree and has been trading online since the coronavirus-induced pandemic broke out in 2020. Seven people have already come forward with complaints, and investigators believe several more have been duped so far.

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As per the police, Ladi wasn’t associated with any trading company and is believed to have been operating solo. A Charkop police officer said that Ladi would ask people “to deposit money into his account and then make investments in cryptocurrency in his own name.” To win the confidence of investors, Ladi would initially offer returns in small amounts and later, the returns would simply stop coming, the police said.

The police officer added, “Not everyone who has lost money is willing to lodge a complaint. Some of the investors believe that once Ladi is out of prison, they will get their money back.”

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A victim of the scam, who lost Rs 1.65 lakhs of his savings said that Ladi assured him “that he held a portfolio of Rs 3 crore” and could return the investment amount “in entirety if things didn’t work out.”

Ladi has been remanded in police custody till May 30 by a magistrate’s court.