Six people, including a law graduate and his girlfriend, were arrested in a case of dacoity for allegedly looting a businessmen on the pretext of selling him bitcoins, police said today.
In August, a Delhi-based businessman filed a complaint alleging that he had been robbed of Rs 36 lakh by a gang, whose members claimed to be Bitcoin dealers, said Rajesh Deo, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime).
He was abducted from the Nirman Vihar Metro Station near Laxmi Nagar and taken to Vaishali, Ghaziabad, where he was assaulted along with his friend and were threatened with dire consequences if they reported the matter to police, he added.
During inquiry, it was found that several "crypto currencies" such as Litecoin, Ethereum, Monero are being traded online through various e-wallets such as Zebpay.com.
The seller and buyer do not meet each other in person.
The victim told police that he had uploaded his information on a website localbitcoins.com. He received a call from a woman, who introduced herself as Karishma Rajput, a bitcoin dealer, said the DCP.
The complainant showed interest in buying bitcoins which were available at a rate of Rs 72,000 per bitcoin.
The complainant was interested to make the payments online through Zebpay.com but Rajput lured him to deal in cash by reducing the price and making the deal more lucrative.
On April 7, she, along with his associates, called the complainant to V3S Mall near Nirman Vihar metro station with cash. She called other members of the gang who abducted the complainant and his friend in their Scorpio Car on the pretext of taking them to the client. The accused took the duo to a flat in Vaishali, where he was robbed of Rs 36 lakh, he said.
It was found that the accused were using different numbers to contact the victims. Through the analysis of the call records, the police identified the accused.
Several raids were carried out in NCR, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh to arrest the accused.
Four members of the gang -- Karamvir Singh, Sandeep and Devendra Chauhan and Kunal Sharma -- were arrested on September 2.
Subsequently, two more accused, Priya Thakur alias Karishma Rajput and Yashashvi Sharma alias Aditya Rajput were arrested on September 27, said the DCP.
During interrogation, it emerged that the gang members were involved in two other cases of dacoity.
The gang is headed by Amandeep Singh, a bankrupt property dealer and a resident of Sector 1, Ghaziabad, who roped in the other members, he said.
Thakur and Yashashvi Sharma had registered on the website localbitcoins.com in fake names. Yashashvi is a law graduate.
They would contact the interested party through phone calls and Facebook messages and would convince the buyers to deal in cash for buying bitcoins, said the officer.
Once they convinced the buyer and called them to the designated place, the other gang members -- Karamvir, Kunal, Kuldeep, Amandeep, Sandeep and Devender -- would then rob the victim, he added.
Amandeep and Kuldeep were yet to be arrested.
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