India's Supreme Court Seeks Wallet Info From Suspect in $3.8B GainBitcoin Scam
Ajay Bhardwaj, the brother of Amit Bhardwaj, the primary suspect who is now deceased, has been asked to give his username and password to authorities.
Mar 28, 2022 at 10:44 a.m. UTC:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/NIDDN655D5AIPJLH3WQZBMR3FM.jpg)
Supreme Court of India (Shuttersock)
Amitoj Singh is CoinDesk's regulatory reporter covering India. He holds BTC and ETH below CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.
India's Supreme Court has asked a key suspect in one of India's biggest bitcoin scams to disclose the username and password of his crypto wallet.
- India's top court asked Ajay Bhardwaj, the brother of Amit Bhardwaj, another suspect who is deceased, to disclose the information to India's Enforcement Directorate, a government agency that fights financial crime.
- The GainBitcoin scam is one of India's biggest bitcoin crimes ever. According to court documents, the scam is valued at 80,000 bitcoins, which is worth about Rs 20,000 crore, or $3.8 billion.
- In a hearing on Monday, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, a government lawyer, said, "This has nothing to do with the legality of cryptocurrency and the username and password is crucial in this matter."
- The Supreme Court, which is led by Justice DY Chandrachud, asked Bhardwaj to cooperate in the investigation and provide the username and password of his crypto wallet.
- Deepak Prakash, Ajay Bhardwaj's lawyer, told CoinDesk that his client doesn't know the username and password of his late brother's crypto wallet and said Ajay Bhardwaj himself has an almost unused crypto wallet and will cooperate with authorities.
- The top court was hearing a petition filed by Ajay Bhardwaj seeking to quash the GainBitcoin case against him. He and his deceased brother, Amit, are alleged to have offered a return of 10% on bitcoin for 18 months.
- The court also extended interim protection to Ajay Bhardwaj from arrest.
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Amitoj Singh is CoinDesk's regulatory reporter covering India. He holds BTC and ETH below CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.
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Amitoj Singh is CoinDesk's regulatory reporter covering India. He holds BTC and ETH below CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.
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