Pune/Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday performed searches on the Raipur (Chhattisgarh)-based premises of an audit agency worker, Gaurav Mehta, as a part of its ongoing cash laundering investigation into an alleged rip-off involving a ₹6,606 crore bitcoin- based mostly Ponzi scheme operated by Singapore-based firm Variable Tech Pte Ltd.
NCP (SP) chief Supriya Sule (PTI Picture)(PTI)
Mehta’s identify had surfaced in audio tapes circulated on Tuesday night time that sought to implicate NCP (SP) chief Supriya Sule and the Congress’s Nana Patole in a rip-off to encash bitcoins for election-related bills. The event got here a day after BJP chief Vinod Tawde was embroiled in an alleged cash-for-votes controversy. Consultants have since debunked the audio tapes and known as them AI-generated.
On Wednesday, each Patole and Supriya Sule denied that it was them on the tapes. Sule additionally despatched a defamation discover to BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi and former IPS officer Ravindranath Patil and lodged a proper criticism with the Election Fee.
A day previous to the meeting elections in Maharashtra, former cop Patil informed the media in Pune that former police commissioner of the town Amitabh Gupta after which deputy commissioner of police at Cyber cell, Bhagyashri Navtake, have been concerned in misappropriation of bitcoins in a case they have been investigating and which have been now being utilized by Sule and Patole for the Maharashtra polls.
In 2018, a particular investigation staff of the Pune police’s Financial Offences Wing (EOW) investigated two of the a number of offences linked to a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme registered within the nation on the time. Among the many 17 individuals arrested by the Pune police have been the alleged masterminds and brothers Amit and Vivek Bharadwaj. They have been charged with dishonest 1000’s of individuals throughout India by promising excessive returns on cryptocurrency investments run by a community of firms.
The Pune police pegged the quantity linked to circumstances in opposition to the Bharadwaj brothers and accomplices at 87,000 bitcoins. In April 2021, the Pune EOW sought the technical assist of former IPS officer Ravindranath Patil and cyber crime knowledgeable Pankaj Ghode within the case. Nevertheless, Patil and Ghode, working with a top-ranked audit agency, allegedly used entry to the case particulars to siphon off massive sums of cryptocurrency from the wallets of these charged in two circumstances of THE multimillion-dollar bitcoin Ponzi scheme, and have been arrested by the Pune police then headed by Amitabh Gupta.
Patil who was launched on bail subsequently informed the media on Tuesday that he was approached by a sure Gaurav Mehta, a witness within the case in opposition to him and Ghode, saying that he had been approached by opposition leaders in Maharashtra to encash bitcoins to fund the polls.
To substantiate his allegation, Patil shared 10 voice notes which had purported audio clips of Sule and Patole allegedly asking for cash for elections from Gaurav Mehta. Inside an hour or so of Patil’s allegations, BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi held a press briefing in Delhi claiming that the event had “unmasked” the MVA.
Sule termed the BJP’s allegations as “familiar tactics” of spreading false data to control voters the night time earlier than election. In response to the allegations in opposition to him, Nana Patole mentioned that he didn’t even perceive what bitcoin was. “I am a farmer, and I don’t even understand bitcoin. That’s not my voice on the tape and we have served them a defamation notice.”
However after these recent allegations, the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday summoned Gaurav Mehta to look earlier than its probe staff in Delhi for questioning. The company was directed by the Supreme Courtroom on December 12 final yr to take over the circumstances registered in reference to the alleged rip-off throughout a number of states in India.
The ED’s older probe relies on a number of circumstances registered by the Maharashtra and Delhi police in opposition to Variable Tech Pte Ltd and its promoters. It’s the ED’s case that the accused collected ₹6,606 crore (as valued in November 2017) within the type of 80,000 bitcoins from the general public, promising a ten% month-to-month return. Nevertheless, the collected funds have been then allegedly diverted by means of 9 corporations situated overseas for buying abroad properties, and buyers allegedly by no means obtained their returns.
Bitcoin is a convertible digital forex however not a authorized tender in India, and its mining refers back to the technique utilized by bitcoin and different cryptocurrencies to provide new cash and to look at new transactions.
The accused had allegedly devised a pc software program for mining of digital /digital/cryptocurrency bitcoin and made “Bitcoin Cloud Mining Contracts” with various gullible buyers. Key accused Ajay Bhardwaj and Mahendra Bhardwaj stay at massive within the case. The company had beforehand connected properties price ₹69 crore within the case and submitted a cost sheet in June 2019 and on February 14 of this yr.
Sagar Vishnoi, co-founder of the suppose tank Future Shift Labs and who has prior to now labored as political marketing consultant with political events, mentioned that the tempo of speech, accent, pronunciation and tone made it clear that it was AI generated.
“The way the voice of ‘Amitabh’ is speaking is very mechanised. When this voice says ‘Gaurav’, the accent is very foreign. On comparing the voice of ‘Amitabh’ in this clip to his voice and speech in vetted public appearances, the accent, tenor, and pace of speech are all different. The real voice is completely different. The made-up accent used in ‘Amitabh’s’ voice is very common in AI-generated clips. The accent of ‘Supriya Sule’ sounds very foreign as well, especially when the voice says ‘Gaurav’ and ‘Don’t play games with me’,” he mentioned.
With inputs from Aditi Agrawal