NEW DELHI, Nov 20: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has begun an inquiry into the alleged bitcoin scam in which a retired police officer of Maharashtra has named alleged involvement of two opposition leaders, the Nationalist Congress Party MP Supriya Sule and the state Congress president, Nana Patole.
The CBI summoned Gaurav Mehta, an employee of the audit firm Sarathi Associates, hours after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) searched his property in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur on Wednesday. The CBI has also filed a case against the two main accused, late Amit Bhardwaj and his brother Ajay Bhardwaj, for running an alleged Ponzi scheme using bitcoins worth up to ₹ 6,600 crore in 2017.
The matter acquired a political dimension during the campaign for the Maharashtra assembly election after retired IPS officer Ravindranath Patil alleged Ms Sule and Mr Patole were involved in the cryptocurrency fraud dating back to 2018. These funds, Mr Patil alleged, were used in the election campaign.
In the ED case, it took up investigation into the money laundering angle after the police in Maharashtra and Delhi filed first information reports (FIRs) against Variable Tech Pvt Ltd, and individuals late Amit Bhardwaj, Ajay Bhardwaj, Vivek Bhardwaj, Simpy Bhardwaj and Mahender Bhardwaj – all members of a family.
The FIRs also named a number of multi-level marketing agents who were alleged to have collected a massive amount of money in the form of bitcoins (worth ₹ 6,600 crore in 2017) from the public with the “false promise” of 10 per cent per month return as bitcoins.
During the Maharashtra election campaign, the BJP latched on to the retired officer’s remark and Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi accused Ms Sule and Mr Patole of using illegal bitcoin transactions to influence election results. Ms Sule has trashed the allegations and challenged the BJP to a debate on the issue. “I deny all the allegations levelled against me by Sudhanshu Trivedi. All this is conjecture and innuendo, and I am ready for a debate with any representative of the BJP at a time and date of their choice, in a public forum,” she posted on X.
(Manas Dasgupta)