New Delhi, March 11 (UNI) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday said that they have arrested key accused Ayush Varshney, the co-founder and CTO of Darwin Labs Private Limited, in connection with the GainBitcoin cryptocurrency fraud case.
As the accused was absconding, a Look Out Circular (LOC) was issued against him. On March 9, he was intercepted by Immigration authorities at Mumbai while attempting to leave India and was subsequently handed over to the CBI. The accused was arrested by the CBI on March 10 in accordance with law.
The case pertains to the alleged GainBitcoin Ponzi scheme floated by Variabletech Pte. Ltd., wherein investors were induced to invest in a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme on the promise of high returns. The funds collected from investors were subsequently misappropriated.
Following the Supreme Court’s direction the CBI lodged a case under Sections 120B, 406 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 against the accused.
The apex court has directed that FIRs relating to similar allegations in the GainBitcoin fraud were directed to be investigated by the CBI as a common investigating agency.
During the course of investigation, the role of Darwin Labs Private Limited and its co-founders, including accused Ayush Varshney, Sahil Baghla and Nikunj Jain (Chief Capital Officer/Founder in Vaomi AI) , emerged in relation to the design, development and deployment of the crypto token known as MCAP and the corresponding ERC-20 smart contract.
Darwin Labs Private Limited was instrumental in developing the entire technological infrastructure of the fraudulent scheme including Bitcoin mining pool platform GBMiners.com, BitCoin Payment Gateway, Coin Bank BitCoin wallet and the Gain BitCoin investor facing website.
Further investigation into the matter is ongoing.
