A magistrate’s court in Thane, India, has granted bail to CoinDCX co-founders Sumit Surendra Gupta and Niraj Ashok Khandelwal, ruling that no prima facie case has been made against them in connection with a fraud complaint of Rs 71 lakh ($75,000) linked to a counterfeit trading platform masquerading as an Indian cryptocurrency exchange.
Court common order on March 23 regarding their bail applications, it was held that they were entitled to bail as no case had been filed against them, even on a preliminary look at the available evidence. The founders were detained for questioning on Saturday and held in custody over the weekend after filing a complaint about defrauding an investor.
In the order, the judge noted that the investigating officer had “no objection” to their release and that the applicants were not present in Mumbra when the alleged offense took place, adding that “some other person, acting as an accused, deceived the informant”, which the informant admitted in court.
CoinDCX Says Bail Order Supports ‘Third Party Impersonation’
On March 24 statement on site
The judge noted that the informant had filed an affidavit in which he had stated that another accused, Rana, had refunded him the fraudulent amount and that the complainants were not the people he met at a cafe in Kausa Mumbra where the fraudulent transaction was entered into.
Since the case was “amicably settled” between the informant and the main accused, the court said there was no question of the founders tampering with evidence or witnesses.
Each was ordered released on bail of 50,000 Indian rupees (about $530) on condition that they cooperate with the investigation and trial.
Related: A pensioner from Hong Kong loses PLN 840,000. dollars as a result of the triple “cryptocurrency expert” scam.
CoinDCX framed the episode as part of a broader uptick in impersonation and phishing scams targeting well-known brands in India’s financial and crypto sectors, urging users to verify domains and only interact with the exchange’s official platform and social media profiles.
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