Indian law enforcers and authorities confiscate three million dollars ($3M) in Bitcoin from a scammer group, reported the Times of India.
Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies are surely much more secure than average financial systems; however, it does not mean that the ecosystem is free of scams and swindles.
Many cryptocurrency projects including start-ups as well as ICOs and exchanges have been proven to be scams over the last couple of years, and now one such a case has reared its ugly head in Asia.
In Gujarat India, property worth around five million dollars ($5,000,000) was confiscated from the person involved in Bitconnect cryptocurrency scam.
Local sources reported that the property included around two hundred and eighty Bitcoins (280 BTC) worth two point nine million dollars ($2.9) as well as land with an estimated value of two point six million dollars.
The apprehension of the man known as Rakesh Savani followed the seizure. The ICO price was just at 20 cents, so the promised return was at least 300,000% of the initial investment.
However, the tokens were only available at their proprietary exchanges. The price of the cryptocurrency fell to a few cents as US regulators warned citizens that the project might be a Ponzi scheme.
The arrest and the seizure of property form Savani is barely surprising considering the head of the project was arrested a year ago in India.
The head of the scheme Divyesh Darji was also accused of holding schemes across India in order to encourage people in investing in the project. He was arrested while traveling from Dubai to India in August last year.
As the whole project was a Ponzi scheme, people across the globe were involved in it, and many have been arrested outside of India including Australian citizen John Bigatton.
There are likely to be more arrests in the future as investigations by different law enforcement agencies around the world are still active. Just a couple of months ago, the FBI invited victims of the Bitconnect scam to get in touch with a view of aiding its investigation
