Key Highlights
- Ahmedabad police arrested six accused in a ₹1.5 crore crypto scam linked to 41 cases, where a victim alone lost ₹57.9 lakh through fake investment promises.
- In Bhopal, a property dealer lost ₹18.5 lakh after a fake trading app displayed nearly ₹50 lakh in fake profits and demanded a 25% withdrawal fee.
- Fraudsters used USDT transactions, multiple bank accounts, and fake platforms to move funds and execute scams across multiple Indian states.
The first week of April has already delivered two fresh reminders that India’s crypto fraud epidemic is not letting up.
In Ahmedabad, the Cyber Crime Branch arrested six individuals linked to a fake cryptocurrency investment operation that cheated a local resident of ₹57.9 lakh and is connected to at least 41 cyber fraud cases across multiple states, with total transactions worth around ₹1.5 crore flowing through the network.
Separately, in Bhopal, a property dealer was duped of ₹18.5 lakh by fraudsters who used a fake share trading app that displayed fabricated profits of nearly ₹50 lakh before demanding a 25% “processing fee” when the victim tried to withdraw.
Both cases follow the same worn-out script that Indian investigators have now seen hundreds of times over. And yet, the script keeps working.
Ahmedabad: Six arrested, one mastermind still absconding in Dubai
The Ahmedabad case started when a local resident filed a complaint with the Cyber Crime Branch after being cheated of ₹57.9 lakh through a fake crypto investment scheme, according to a report by the Times of India.
According to the Ahmedabad police, the victim was first contacted through Facebook, where someone using a fake profile spent time building a personal connection before steering the conversation toward investments.
Once trust was established, the victim was asked to download an application called “CBOE US” and begin investing in USDT (Tether), the dollar-pegged stablecoin that has become the default currency in Indian crypto fraud operations. Over the course of roughly 24 transactions, the victim transferred money into multiple bank accounts provided by the scammers.
The app showed what appeared to be real profits growing in the account. But when the victim attempted to pull his money out, the operators hit him with the request that has become the single biggest red flag in these scams: pay an additional fee to unlock your withdrawal.
That is when the victim approached the authorities.
What investigators found behind that single complaint turned out to be far bigger than one victim. The Cyber Crime Branch traced the money into a cluster of five bank accounts, four of which were flagged in connection with dozens of fraud complaints registered across different Indian states.
The accounts had been opened under the name “Crystal Interior Designers Private Limited” across ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Yes Bank, and Bandhan Bank. The total transactions flowing through these accounts are estimated at around ₹1.5 crore.
Six people were arrested: Tahir Belim, Adnan Sheikh, Ajaz Sheikh, Omkar Goswami, Maqsud Mirza, and Sunny Ashok Kumar Maggo from Delhi. The Delhi-based accused allegedly shared bank account details with the operation’s suspected mastermind, Mayur Savaliya, who police say is currently operating from Dubai and remains absconding.
The probe also revealed that the network had coordination layers built into it. Middlemen were responsible for opening accounts, managing cash flows, and even physically transporting account holders to New Delhi for banking operations.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Hardik Makadia explained that the scam followed a pattern that has now become standard in India’s crypto fraud landscape: targets are identified on social media, emotionally engaged over a period of time, and then persuaded to invest through fake platforms.
The funds never go into actual cryptocurrency wallets. Instead, victims are given bank account numbers where the money is deposited, withdrawn, and cycled out before law enforcement can intervene.
A case has been registered under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Information Technology Act.
Bhopal: ₹18.5 lakh gone through a fake trading app
Around the same time, a property dealer in Bhopal named Lalit Namdev found himself on the other end of a nearly identical con, just with a slightly different entry point.
According to a report from the Times of India, Namdev, a resident of Chanakyapuri who also dabbled in stock market investing, came across a mobile application on social media sometime in January 2026. The app promised high returns through share and crypto trading. He called the number listed on the platform.
A woman answered, walked him through the supposed benefits, and convinced him that he could earn substantial returns by investing through their system, which would charge a commission.
Namdev began putting money in. Over the next few weeks, the app’s dashboard showed his investment growing to nearly ₹50 lakh. From the outside, it looked like everything was working exactly as promised.
The trap closed when Namdev tried to withdraw. The operators told him he needed to pay 25% of the total amount as a processing fee before any withdrawal could be processed. By that point, Namdev had already deposited ₹18.55 lakh into the platform. Realising he had been scammed, he stopped paying and filed a complaint with the cyber cell. The case was eventually transferred to the Chunabhatti police station, where a fraud case has been registered against unidentified suspects.
The investigation is ongoing.
Same playbook, different cities
Strip away the city names, and the two cases are nearly indistinguishable. Social media is the hunting ground. Fake profiles and phone conversations are the trust-building mechanism. A polished-looking app or platform with rising numbers on the screen is the hook. And when the victim finally asks for their money back, a sudden “processing fee,” or “tax” or “verification charge” appears out of nowhere.
This is not new. The Crypto Times has covered this pattern extensively over the past several months, from Pune to Hyderabad to Mumbai. The use of USDT as the investment vehicle is particularly telling. Tether has become the go-to asset for Indian crypto scammers for two reasons: it sounds legitimate enough to convince people who are not familiar with crypto, and once funds are converted into USDT and moved through wallets, the trail becomes significantly harder for Indian law enforcement to follow across borders.
In just the past month alone, a 70-year-old advocate in Ahmedabad lost ₹57.9 lakh in a scam that used the exact same “CBOE US” app. Three senior citizens in Hyderabad lost a combined ₹4.4 crore through WhatsApp and Instagram traps. A Pune techie lost ₹69 lakh after being lured by a fake trading app. And across Pune alone, ₹3.8 crore was lost in just seven days to crypto scams earlier this week.
Ahmedabad’s growing fraud problem
For Ahmedabad specifically, this is not a one-off. According to data presented in the Gujarat Legislative Assembly earlier this year, the city recorded 694 cyber fraud cases between February 2024 and January 2026, involving a total of ₹134.45 crore. Police managed to recover ₹49.01 crore and arrested 664 accused across 315 traced cases.
In February 2026, the Ahmedabad Crime Branch arrested Sujit Shankarrao Dev, a 47-year-old software specialist who had been absconding for nearly two years after allegedly cheating over 100 investors in a cryptocurrency investment scam worth more than ₹100 crore. Dev had run a fake crypto investment office in Mumbai’s Dahisar area since 2021, promising returns of up to four times the invested amount through so-called crypto trading and mining schemes. He was tracked through electronic surveillance and coordination between the Crime Branch teams of two cities and arrested near the Ahmedabad airport.
Gujarat’s history with large-scale crypto fraud runs even deeper. The BitConnect scam, orchestrated by Gujarat-native Satish Kumbhani, remains one of the biggest crypto Ponzis in Indian history. The Enforcement Directorate seized crypto worth ₹1,646 crore from devices linked to Kumbhani in February 2025. In January 2026, the ED arrested two more individuals in connection with the case after tracing extorted Bitcoins through multiple third-party crypto accounts, with funds eventually converted into Ethereum and USDT.
The bigger picture
The numbers at the national level paint a grim picture. Over 24 lakh cybercrime complaints were filed on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal in 2025, with reported fraud losses totalling ₹22,495 crore. The recovery rate remains abysmal. Of the ₹36,448 crore in cumulative losses reported since the portal’s inception, only ₹60.52 crore has actually been returned to victims.
The government’s “PRAHAAR” counter-terrorism strategy, released in February 2026, specifically flagged the growing use of crypto wallets by criminal and terrorist networks. A dedicated darknet and cryptocurrency task force has been set up under the Multi-Agency Centre. The Union Budget 2025-2026 allocated ₹782 crore for cybersecurity projects. And from April 1, 2026, new powers under the Income Tax Bill now allow authorities to access crypto wallets, emails, and social media during authorized searches.
Whether these tools translate into actual recoveries for the thousands of victims already impacted remains an open question.
For now, the message from every recent case is blunt and consistent: any unsolicited investment opportunity arriving through social media, WhatsApp, or a random app, especially one promising assured returns in crypto, should be treated as a scam until proven otherwise. If a platform asks you to pay a fee to unlock your own withdrawal, it is not a real platform. And no legitimate exchange or investment scheme will ever reach out to you through a Facebook profile or a Telegram group.
If you suspect you have been targeted, call the National Cybercrime Helpline at 1930 or file a complaint through the NCRP portal immediately. The “golden hours” after a fraud, when bank accounts can still be frozen, are often the only window for recovering any of the stolen funds.
Also Read: Industrialist Arrested in ₹315 Cr Crypto Fraud Case in India
