The Cyber Crime Cell of Pune Police on Monday filed a 4,400-page chargesheet against two cyber experts, including a former IPS officer, who are accused of siphoning off large sums of cryptocurrency from the wallets of accused in two cases of Bitcoin Ponzi scheme dating back to 2018 when the duo was roped in by the Pune police in their probe.
Following an investigation that had started in April 2021, the Pune City police’s cyber crime cell on March 12 this year arrested two cyber crime experts – Pankaj Ghode (38) and Ravindranath Patil (45).
Patil is an ex-IPS officer of the 2004 batch of the Jammu and Kashmir cadre. Ghode and Patil had helped a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Pune police in its probe into two cases of multimillion-dollar bitcoin Ponzi scheme from 2018.
During the probe led by Deputy Commissioner of Police Bhagyashree Navatake involving a team of select officials and personnel it was revealed that Ghode and Patil had diverted a significant chunk of cryptocurrency funds from the wallets of the 2018 cases’ accused into their own wallets as well as that of their accomplices.
The duo is alleged to have prepared forged screenshots of the blockchain wallets to funnel the cryptocurrency. From the 17 accused arrested in the 2018 case, the Pune police had, with the help of Ghode and Patil, seized 241.46 bitcoins, 452 bitcoin cash units and 94 Ethereum units. The investigation officer of the case,…
