The police seized $12 million from Raj Kundra, the husband of the famous local actress Shilpa Shetty, suspecting him of involvement in the fraudulent crypto scheme Gain Bitcoin, which lured investors out of $800 million.
While investigating the Gain Bitcoin case, investigators identified businessman Raj Kundra, the husband of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty. The businessman is not the main suspect in the case, the police explained. But his assets were confiscated, including a residential property in Mumbai registered in his wife's name.
The Gain Bitcoin project was founded in 2017. Its creators Ajay Bhardwaj and Mahendra Bhardwaj promised investors a monthly profit in bitcoin: 10% of the invested funds. In total, the creators of Gain Bitcoin raised $800 million. Law enforcement officers say that money raised from new participants was used to distribute payments to early investors. When the pyramid stopped receiving investments from new users, payments stopped, and the organizers converted the remaining funds into bitcoins, saving them in anonymous digital wallets.
According to the prosecutor's office, Kundra received 285 bitcoins from Amit Bhardwaj, the value of which is now more than $18 million. These coins were intended to open a mining farm in Ukraine, but the idea was never implemented, and the bitcoins remained with Kundra. The husband and wife deny involvement in the fraudulent scheme.
At the beginning of the year, the Indian police arrested foreigners who created the fraudulent India SEBI application for investing in cryptocurrencies. The attackers managed to deceive local citizens for $1.8 million.
