Card cloning racket using bitcoins busted; 1 held

A man was arrested here in connection with an international card cloning racket which used to transfer stolen money to Dubai through virtual currency 'bitcoins', a mode of payment that is not authorised in India and several other nations.
In a joint operation with their Mumbai counterparts, Delhi Police's Crime Branch arrested 25-year-old Pankaj Bharadwaj from near India Gate.
Bharadwaj's name had emerged during the interrogation of one Nisar Ansari who was arrested from Dadar area in Mumbai earlier, said a senior official.
Ansari, who allegedly cloned debit and credit cards to illegally withdraw money from the accounts of unsuspecting persons, told police he used to transfer the stolen money to one Sumair Sheikh in Delhi via hawala channels, the official said.

Delhi Police was informed about Sheikh and a trap was laid to arrest him, but the receiver of the money sent by Ansari turned out to be Bhardwaj, a resident of Ghaziabad.
Bharadwaj told police that the international cloning racket he was part of allegedly operated in Delhi, Mumbai, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, several south Indian states and Dubai, the official said.

Bharadwaj used to convert the money he received from Ansari into bitcoins and then transfer them to Sheikh in Dubai. Sheikh then encashed the virtual money there.
Around Rs 8 lakh was recovered from Bharadwaj's possession, the official said.

Bitcoin is a cryptographic, digital and experimental currency generated through a peer-to-peer network which surfaced in 2008. At present, there are no regulations governing virtual currencies like bitcoin in India.
Currently, one bitcoin is equivalent to Rs 24,633. In December 2013, RBI had said that the creation, trade and use of virtual currency as a medium of payment is not authorised by the central bank or any monetary authority here, police said.