The Indian Enforcement Bureau has confiscated $4.8 million (42.8 crores) of assets belonging to citizens currently incarcerated in the US for fraudulent $20 million crypto investors via a fake Coinbase website.
Financial Crime Institutions announcement On Tuesday, 18 properties were frozen in Delhi, linked to bank accounts tied to 31-year-old Chirag Tomar, with bank accounts of his relatives and business associates.
“The escape of crypto fraud is no longer an option. Bad actors will be tracked, exposed and imprisoned,” said Sudhakar Lakshmanaraja, founder of blockchain education platform Decryption.
“The Indian government has tools, determination and international coordination to crack down on financial crime in the digital assets sector,” he added.
Tomar received a Five Years of Federal Prison In October 2024, he masterminded a sophisticated phishing scheme aimed at popular crypto exchange platforms.
His criminal enterprise relied on creating counterfeit Coinbase websites to trick users into revealing account eligibility.
Investigators discovered that Tomar washed stolen digital assets through various trading platforms to around $72 million (600 crores) before converting them to Indian rupee.
Tomar’s team manipulates search engine results to rank fraudulent sites higher than legal sites, making it more likely that victims will stumble during their daily searches.
“The spoofed website looked quite similar to a trusted website, except for contact details,” ED said in an official statement.
When users tried to log in to these fake platforms, they received a fake error message and instructed them to call a fake customer support number.
Scammers pretending to be Coinbase representatives can nibble callers to share security codes and allow remote computer access to empty cryptographic accounts.
Tomar has poured these illegal profits into funding high-end watches, luxury sports cars including Lamborghini and Porsche, as well as international travel.
The scheme ran for more than two years before authorities arrested Tomar at an Atlanta airport when they returned to the US in December 2023. He admitted to guilt over the conspiracy charges in May 2024.
The ED began an investigation after learning about Tomar’s arrest in the US through a news report.
February, executives A coordinated attack was carried out. It crosses Delhi and Mumbai as part of an ongoing investigation into the Money Trail.
“A further investigation is ongoing,” the agency noted, suggesting additional seizures or arrests could continue as authorities continue to track assets related to international fraud businesses.
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