WITHOUT ANY technical support or expertise, Pune police officers recently swooped in on a major cryptocurrency scam, tracing crypto-wallets containing 237 bitcoins worth Rs 533 crore. But it did not come easy for the team.
Buy Now | Our best subscription plan now has a special price
Blockchain technology is said to be anonymous, but Bhagyashree Navtake, deputy commissioner of police of Pune’s cyber cell, used the same technology to nab the crypto-scammers. “The most beautiful aspect of blockchain is that every transaction is recorded on a distributed database—and is immutable, meaning it can neither be changed nor modified,” said Navtake.
Navtake, an IPS officer of Maharashtra cadre from Latur, was transferred to the Pune cyber cell in October 2020. Little did she know about the world of crypto as crime in this field of the cyber world were rising. “After I joined as DCP cyber cell in Pune, a major crypto scam came to light,” she said referring to the Bharadwaj case in which two cyber experts were arrested for stealing cryptocurrency while helping the police in two crypto-scam cases in 2018.
The case
In 2018, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) from the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Pune police investigated two of the several cases linked to a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme registered in the country at the time. Among the 17 persons arrested were the mastermind and brothers Amit and Vivek Bharadwaj. The…
