Two crypto fraud cases at opposite ends of the enforcement pipeline are exposing how India’s investment scam problem keeps outpacing its justice system. In Uttar Pradesh, a fresh ₹50 crore crypto and forex scheme has just entered the FIR stage, while in Himachal Pradesh, one of the country’s largest crypto multi-level marketing frauds remains stuck in investigation limbo years after it surfaced.
Fresh FIR in Hardoi: Assured Returns, Goa Trips, and Lucknow Plots
According to a Times of India report, Hardoi Police have registered an FIR against five people at Pali police station for allegedly cheating investors of nearly ₹50 crore through entities operating under the names Bombitex Exchange and BMax Reality. The accused include a couple from Lakhimpur Kheri and three others from Lakhimpur Kheri and Sitapur districts.
Investigators said the group held promotional seminars in Hardoi, Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri, and Lucknow, presenting themselves as company directors and claiming the firms were registered with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Government of India to project legitimacy.
Investors were reportedly promised a fixed 7.5% monthly return, meaning a ₹1 lakh deposit would supposedly generate ₹7,500 every month. Those putting in ₹1.35 lakh were offered an all-expenses-paid Goa trip, while investments above ₹5 lakh came with the promise of residential plots in Lucknow.
When payouts stopped, complainants who sought refunds were instead pushed to shift their money to a new platform on the assurance that earlier losses could be recovered through fresh deposits. SP Hardoi Ashok Meena said a probe is underway to verify losses, trace the money trail, and identify more victims.
Himachal’s ₹1,740 Crore Warning: What Delayed Justice Looks Like
The Hardoi case is at the stage where Himachal Pradesh stood years ago, and the northern state’s experience shows how long the road ahead can be. As reported by The Indian Express, around 2.5 lakh people invested an estimated ₹1,740 crore (~$180.96 million) in the MLM-linked cryptocurrency scheme between 2018 and 2022, with the actual fraud calculated at around ₹500 crore since many participants received money back as returns.
The scoreboard after two years of investigation is stark. The Himachal Pradesh Police SIT has arrested 76 accused across roughly 280 complaints and multiple charge sheets, but 69 of them, including four women, are already out on bail. The trial has not begun against a single accused.
The ED, which took cognizance of the case in March 2024 under the PMLA, has made just two arrests in two years: Hemraj Thakur and, most recently, Masoom Juneja, picked up from Mohali on June 15. His father, Vijay Juneja, is already in state police custody.
The alleged kingpin, 44-year-old Subhash Sharma, is believed to be in Dubai. The Crypto Times had earlier reported on the ED’s Shimla office cracking down on the ₹500 crore Korvio Coin MLM scheme, where recovered digital records showed over 2.48 lakh users and transactions exceeding $219 million, despite the accused deleting records and domains to cover their tracks.
The Shared Playbook: Referral Chains and Manufactured Scarcity
Both cases run on the same architecture. In Himachal, each investor received a unique digital ID, and enrolling ten others generated ten new IDs under the original one, converting victims into recruiters.
A police officer told The Indian Express that the actual number of direct victims ranges between 80,000 and one lakh, who were further linked to around 1.5 lakh more people.
The scammers fixed the price of their digital coin themselves, with the face value starting near ₹70 and shooting up to between ₹800 and ₹4,000, claiming the tokens would only trade in dollars. Many victims poured in compensation money received from the government for land acquired for road projects, and most were from Kangra, Mandi, Hamirpur, and Una districts, along with some from Punjab’s Phagwara.
The Hardoi accused similarly encouraged participants to recruit new investors through a network model, layering the same referral mechanics beneath the assured-returns pitch.
The Himachal scam only gained official attention after the independent MLA Hoshyar Singh Chambyal, who later joined the BJP, raised it in the 2023 Monsoon Session of the Assembly and tabled a list of around 450 duped constituents from Dehra.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu subsequently ordered a probe, a dedicated helpline was launched in 2024, and an SIT was constituted under then DIG Abhishek Dullar, now IG (Law and Order), with the team currently working under SP (CID) Rajesh Chabra. Chambyal, however, remains dissatisfied with the pace and says investors are yet to recover their money.
A Widening National Pattern
The two cases land amid an unrelenting run of crypto fraud enforcement across India. Just this week, the ED busted a ₹303 crore transnational cyber fraud ring whose crypto trail also led to Dubai, days after seizing ₹3.35 crore in digital assets in raids across Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Srinagar. ED Director Rahul Navin has flagged crypto fraud as a key enforcement priority, with the agency filing 812 charge sheets in 2025-26.
For victims in Hardoi, the Himachal timeline is the cautionary subtext: FIRs are only the beginning, and with masterminds increasingly parking themselves and their proceeds offshore, recovery often lags years behind the headlines.
Also Read: ATC Coin Fraud: India’s ED Attaches ₹55.5 Cr in Mumbai Properties
