The reputation of the Indian police has long been tarnished by extortion and bribery, but for the first time the police set their sights on bitcoin. Eight police officers were wanted by the Criminal Investigation Department in the Indian state of Gujarat for extorting 200 BTC from a businessman, Indian national daily Hindustan Times reported.
Local businessman Shailesh Bhatt filed a complaint against the police who illegally detained him and demanded more than 200 bitcoins as ransom. In addition to the police, among the accused are a lawyer and an “agent” who was supposed to supervise the deal between the police and the businessman.
After filing a complaint, two police officers were arrested, the rest fled. This was announced by the Director General of Gujarat Criminal Investigation Department. According to the victim, the accused summoned him to a police station in Gandhinagar (the capital of Gujarat), where he was kidnapped, taken to a farm and allegedly forced to transfer 200 BTC to an unknown account.
The police released Bhatt on the same day after he promised to provide them with 320 million Indian rupees through the hawala payment system. The director general of the department said that no evidence of transfer of funds was found, but evidence of kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, threats and demands for ransom was found. The CEO also suggested that the police might have kidnapped Bhatt because of a complaint filed against him by an unknown person, according to which Shailesh Bhatt himself stole those 200 bitcoins from someone.
There have been many cases of bitcoin extortion in the world, but this is the first case in which the police were involved. Although this is not the first time that law enforcement has been involved in cryptocurrency theft. In 2015, two former federal agents were charged with stealing Bitcoin confiscated from the anonymous online trading platform Silk Road.
Cryptocurrency news from India has not been very encouraging lately. In addition, The central bank of India has prohibited other banks from dealing with companies engaged in cryptocurrency activities.
According to https://thenextweb.com
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