India: Latest Crypto Scam Might Scare You From Investing in New Tokens

The world of cryptocurrencies has attracted a lot of attention thanks to the number of scams associated with the industry. Well, on September 6, another scam was added to the list.

Thane The Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) of the Police, Maharashtra, India has arrested two people on charges of carrying out a crypto scam.

Those detained defrauded at least 1,400 people and used fake cryptocurrency tokens to trick investors out of their money. ‘Magic 3x’ and ‘SMP’ were the names of their fake crypto tokens.

The arrests took place on August 10 and authorities carried out raids on neighborhoods in Mumbai, India, to track down the fraudsters.

Inside the scam

The plan was to entice investors with huge rate of return claims. The rate of return increased along with their investment. Not to mention that there was no exchange listing for these SMPs and Magic 3x, the so-called crypto tokens.

At press time, the investigation was ongoing.

That being said, Indian investors continue to be fascinated with cryptocurrencies despite the tough market conditions.

According to reports, Indian customers accessed cryptocurrency fraud websites more than 9.6 million times in 2021 alone.

According to Chainalysis, a software platform that tracks illegal activities related to cryptocurrency transactions, popular scam websites in India include coinpayu.com, adbtc.top, hackertyper.net, duamine.com and coingain.app, among others. Indian consumers visited these five websites a total of 4.6 million times.

Due to these growing crimes, every crypto business and activity comes under close scrutiny from the Indian government. And, the latest in the deal, Indian crypto exchange Wazir X recently faced the wrath of India’s ED.

According to an unnamed government source, ED’s investigation into cryptocurrency exchange WazirX revealed the “dark side” of cryptocurrencies. Allegations of WazirX involvement in money laundering are being investigated by the ED.

In addition, as part of the ongoing investigation, the agency also froze bank deposits worth 64.67 crore (about 665 million).