Suspects of fraud with Ethereum for $ 5.34 million were detained in India

Indian police have detained suspects in a cryptocurrency fraud worth 400 million rupees (~$5.34 million), the Times of India reports.

During the raid, law enforcement officers arrested four people in the city of Lanovala, seizing about 600 grams of gold, cars worth more than $134,000, firearms and other items.

A day later, in Nagpur, the police detained seven more suspects of involvement in the fraudulent scheme.

According to law enforcement, the attackers urged potential investors to buy Ethereum on the ZebPay platform, and then send the cryptocurrency to their own website, Ether Trade Asia. By manipulating the data, they demonstrated to investors the imaginary profitability of the project, and spent the funds raised on themselves.

The police identified over 170 investors who lost more than $500,000. But the project’s website and on-chain data led to several more “dubious transactions” in digital currencies in the amount of 400 million rupees.

Participants in the scheme are also suspected of murdering one of the accomplices for refusing to report “passwords of important transactions.”

The group has been on the run since March 2021. The location of its participants was determined by police cyber experts, tracking the online activity of both the attackers themselves and family members.