The CBI seized about ₹ 1 crore in cash during its searches at the premises of alleged fraudsters
The CBI has arrested a Delhi resident who allegedly posed as a Canadian government official and coerced his targets into transferring their assets to crypto wallets before siphoning them off with his accomplices, officials said Thursday.
The CBI had recovered Rs 1 crore cash from the premises of prime accused Sahil Pal, a resident of Mukherjee Nagar in North Delhi, during a search on Tuesday.
On May 11, he was booked along with a person named Ashish Bhambani by the agency on inputs from the Canadian authorities, the officials said.
Mr Pal was produced before a special CBI court which sent him to the CBI custody till July 29 for further interrogation, they said.
The CBI had worked on local intelligence and conducted surveillance based on inputs and a search operation was initiated on Tuesday at the premises of both the accused, the officials said.
"The CBI conducted searches at different places on the premises of the accused in an ongoing investigation of a case related to Crypto frauds. During searches, a cash of Rs 1 crore (approximately) was recovered from the premises of an accused," a CBI spokesperson said.
It was alleged the accused were impersonating government officials in Canada to execute their fraudulent activities, the agency said.
The CBI FIR alleged Mr. Pal and Mr. Bhambani, who live in the Rajouri Garden area of West Delhi, allegedly posed as Canadian government officials and cheated Quebec-based Trishan Goussard in September last year.
The duo asked Goussard to deposit CAD 7006 (around INR 4.35 lakh at present exchange rates) in a crypto wallet to avoid several fraud charges in his compromised social insurance number, the CBI has alleged.
An unsuspecting Goussard deposited the amount through Bitcoin ATM. The wallet was last active on the Binance application through an IP address that had 103 instances of logs linked with a mobile number registered in the name of Bhambani, it alleged.
"Their modus operandi involved providing fake technical support consultation to unsuspecting victims and coercing them into transferring cryptocurrency funds. These ill-gotten cryptocurrency assets were subsequently routed through multiple crypto wallets, ultimately ending up in the perpetrators' crypto accounts," the spokesperson said.