Indian Authorities Arrested Another Suspect In $160M Crypto Scam

Indian authorities arrested another suspect in a $160 million crypto scam and the case came to light back in January when the kingpin absconded from the country after his first problems with the law emerged in 2020 so let’s read more in today’s latest cryptocurrency news.

The Enforcement Directorate arrested a person dubbed Abdul Gafoor as one of the accused in the Morris Coin fraud crypto scam case which erupted on the India crypto scene in January 2022 while remaining one of the biggest such frauds in the country. ED is an economic intelligence wing of the Ministry of Finance and tracks high-value economic crimes but it took over the case in 2021 after a few previous ones were registered against Morris Coin and Nishad K. Gafoor is the director of a shell company dubbed Stox Global Broker Private Limited and he used to divert the money of the investors to other shell entities.

Arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, Gafoor was remanded in judicial custody and the ED is likely to request the court for Gafoor’s custody for interrogation according to the reports. The Morris Coin Fraud case came to light in 2020 when one of the victims complained to the police. The complaint pertained to Morris Coin investment Plan 300-day sand the kingpin of the fraud who was arrested and later granted bail.

The police said they were unable to realize the full magnitude of the fraud but after the bail, Nishad suspected left the country. In November 2021, the police arrested seven people after getting complaints and realized that Nishad duped more than 900 investors out of $160 million. They were working as collection agents and conduits for Nishad and the bank statements show that they transferred up to $1.3 billion to different accounts that were related to Nishad. The police then found out that money collected purportedly as investmetns was diverted to shell companies and invested in real estate.

The ED investigations revealed that the investors were asked to invest about $200 for 10 Morris Coins that have a 300-day lock period. During that time, the investors recieved a 3% per month return. Once the coin gets listed on exchanges, the price will boom like BTC, as Morris coin promised. This continued during the lockdown period in 2020 until Nishad was finally arrested. The Indian authorities arrested him but in the past two weeks, this is the third crypto fraud case that was reported to the media.