Another incident added to India’s long list of crypto crimes. This time, a man allegedly duped his friend into investing Rs 21.27 lakh in cryptocurrency through a website. The accused, Atul Yevale, was denied bail by the Bombay High Court.
According to the police, Yevale and his friends influenced Rajendrandra Salunke to invest in the crypto TRON via the coin24 website. Yevale apparently told Salunke and his associates that the value of 1 TRON was Rs.10 and also that they would earn a profit of Rs. 0.50 per TRON per day on their investments.
Salunkhe and his associates gave Yevale and his friends a massive sum of Rs. 21,37,350 to invest in TRON. The police say that the accused party did not either repay the said amount nor make the promised investment.
An FIR was filed at the Baramati Police Station by Salunkhe and his associates. Furthermore, the coin24 website was operated by the co-accused.
Yevale filed for pre-arrest bail plea, which was rejected by Justice NJ Jamadar on May 11 stating that Salunkhe and his associates were “induced to part with money.”
The court further said, “From the perusal of the material on record, especially the first information report (FIR), it becomes evident that the first informant (Salunkhe) and his associates were made to part with a huge sum of Rs.21,37,350.”
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The court rejected the bail saying, “The submission on behalf of the applicant (Yevale) that he has no concern with WWW.COIN24.LIVE and only the co-accused were handling the same, at this stage, which does not merit acceptance. It is essentially a matter for investigation.”
The only way to reduce crypto crimes in the country is to promote crypto education and regulation of the crypto industry. Indian lawmakers, however, seem to be moving in the opposite direction, with the GST council considering to impose a 28% tax on all cryptocurrencies in addition to the already levied 30% income tax.
