CBI Completes Questioning Of Gaurav Mehta In Alleged ₹6,600-Crore Bitcoin Scam Case

Questioning from Gaurav Mehta has been completed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday and Friday in the bitcoin scam case. If required, he will be called again for questioning. He is being examined as a witness in the case, said a CBI official.

The CBI had summoned Gaurav Mehta for questioning on Wednesday in connection with the Gain bitcoin scam case probed by the agency. The move from CBI has come a day after Gaurav Mehta's name surfaced following the revelations made by former Maharashtra IPS officer Ravindranath Patil.

According to Patil, Mehta, a resident of Raipur, was working for a consultancy firm who, as a forensic expert, assisted the Pune police in the Rs 6600 crore cryptocurrency scam in the year 2018. Former IPS officer Ravindranath Patil was arrested in a 2018 cryptocurrency "fraud" case being probed by the Pune Police. In his complaint sent to the Election Commission via email, Patil said according to the chats he claims to possess, it appears that hundreds of Bitcoins worth billions of rupees may have been pumped in the assembly polls and the previous Lok Sabha elections.

In December last year, the Supreme Court had ordered transfer of over 40 FIRs related to the Bitcoin cryptocurrency scam to the CBI for further investigation and shifted the trial to a Delhi court. The FIRs Case involving Ajay Bhardwaj, late Amit Bhardwaj and others were lodged by several agencies, including the CBI besides the local police of Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Chandigarh, Punjab, Karnataka and Jammu and Kashmir.

The ED in December last year had arrested Simpy Bhardwaj aka Simpy Gaur in connection with the investigation in the case of M/s Variable Pte Ltd and ors colloquially called Gain Bitcoin Ponzi scheme under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). ED had initiated investigation on the basis of multiple FIRs registered by Maharashtra Police and Delhi Police against M/s Variable Tech Pte Ltd, Amit Bhardwaj, Ajay Bhardwaj, Vivek Bhardwaj, Simpy Bhardwaj, Mahender Bhardwaj and number of MLM agents, wherein it has been alleged that they had collected (approximately) Rs 6600 crore in the form of Bitcoin from the public in the name of investment.