As the cryptocurrency industry grows, malicious individuals and groups seek (and find) more opportunities to get away with other people’s digital assets, the biggest crypto Ponzi scam ever in India costing its victims billions of dollars.

Specifically, in the elaborate pyramid scheme called GainBitcoin, victims lost a total of over 1 trillion Indian rupees, which equates to over $12.8 billion, an India-based news platform Onmanorama announced June 16.

In a typical pyramid scheme, scam orchestrator Amit Bhardwaj operated with the help of his “Seven Stars”. The group promised its victims a 10% monthly return on Bitcoin-on-Bitcoin deposits for 18 months through multi-level marketing schemes.

Before realizing that the number of Bitcoins (BTC) is limited and therefore collateral is not viable, several investors have already put their money into the scam. The situation was complicated with the death of his brain, who died earlier in 2022 from cardiac arrest.

Bhardwaj himself is believed to have made between 385,000 and 600,000 Bitcoin in profit and police in Pune, the state capital of Maharashtra, have reportedly recovered over 60,000 user IDs and email addresses involved in the scam. ‘affair.

With Bhardwaj gone, the next prime suspect is his brother Ajay Bhardwaj, who failed to comply with an order to release his late brother Amit’s crypto wallet username and password to the Directorate of Security. Enforcement (ED) Department of Finance India.

The legality of crypto is not a subject of investigation

Earlier in March, the ED said the legality of cryptocurrency in India, which is still deciding how to regulate it, was not an issue in the case as it was about a Ponzi scheme, stating that:

“Investigation so far has revealed that Amit Bhardwaj (who died in January this year) with the connivance of the petitioner, Vivek Bhardwaj, Mahender Bhadrway and others i.e. marketing agents at multiple levels and associates, collected 80,000 bitcoins as proceeds of crime.”

Notably, the crypto market is not immune to scams, with another popular type involving a cryptocurrency’s team or individual pumping its price by publicly claiming to be bullish and then selling their assets to an inflated price, profiting millions of dollars.