Police in Mumbai have booked the managing director of Coin ZX, an Indian cryptocurrency trading platform that allegedly scammed investors out of $23 million (Rs 200 crore).
Filed last week, the Kasturba Marg police force has opened a case against the now Dubai-based Ravi Mahaseth, as well as five other individuals they police say were involved in the fraud.
Complaints about Coin ZX first surfaced in January 2023, according to English-language news outlet Hindustan Times. One 25-year-old man said at the time that he had invested just over $5,000 in Coin ZX after attending a seminar on multi-level marketing.
The man, Mohammad Arif, informed police that representatives of Coin ZX told him the platform would invest his money into Bitcoin, and that he would be able to withdraw his investment—including profit—after six months.
Mumbai Police now report that Coin ZX had defrauded people across India, with authorities in Hyderabad lodging a case against Mahaseth and Coin ZX barely two weeks ago.
In this particular instance, one complainant reported that he was introduced to Coin ZX by one of Mahaseth’s associates, Ramesh Puri, and that after investing around $1,300 he received returns from Coin ZX for a period of four months.
The victim also encouraged friends and family to put money into Coin ZX’s investment scheme, with his contacts investing anything from $1,150 to $13,800 (Rs 1 lakh to Rs 12 lakh).
Yet the payments to investors ceased after four months, at which point Coin ZX told clients that it was because of a technical issue.
The firm promised investors that returns would resume after another four months, and that all outstanding payments would be delivered within a period of 20 months.
However, the Hyderabad Central Crime Station states in its first information report that both claims were false, and that Coin ZX shuttered operations before many investors realized that the company was fraudulent.
Police in Hyderabad booked Mahaseth, Puri and several others under Sections 406, 420 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code, which relate to criminal breaches of trust and misappropriation of funds.
However, at some point after the initial complaints against Coin ZX, Ravi Mahaseth relocated to Dubai, in the UAE.
The UAE and India do have an extradition treaty, but Mahaseth’s precise whereabouts are currently unknown.
His LinkedIn profile still lists him as residing in Mumbai, while his Facebook and Instagram accounts do not list any locations.
His Instagram does feature a post from Dubai, where he apparently attended the “4th International Convention” of VitnixX Ai, which does appear to be his latest vehicle.
Mahaseth had also allegedly been involved in other investment firms, including FX & Smart Bull, Smart X, and Samruddhi Multi Trade Pvt Ltd.
Cryptocurrency fraud has been a big problem in India in recent years, with the Asian country ranking fifth in 2023 in terms of the number of complaints related to crypto fraud (840), and sixth in terms of the total volume lost ($44 million).
Only today, India’s Enforcement Directorate raided several premises linked with Indian national Chirag Tomar, who has been sentenced to five years in prison in the US after being found guilty of using spoofed Coinbase websites to steal over $20 million.
And last week, Indian authorities seized $190 million in cryptocurrency that had been stolen as part of the infamous BitConnect Ponzi scheme, which was founded by Satish Kumbhani of Hemal, India in 2016 and defrauded investors of Bitcoin now valued at over $30 billion.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.