A woman from West Delhi lost Rs. 3 crore on July 4 while traveling abroad when her close friend, aided by two accomplices, stole 6 bitcoins (BTC) from her crypto mobile wallet, according to the police.
The suspects, including the accused woman from Uttam Nagar and her two associates, committed the fraud while the victim’s phone was in flight mode. They used various “tumblers” to obscure the cryptocurrency trail. Tumblers are tools used to mix identifiable cryptocurrency with others to hide its origin.
“The accused and her associates knew the woman would be on a flight for 7-8 hours, during which her phone would be off,” said Hemant Tiwari, Deputy Commissioner of Police, IFSO.
Investigations revealed that the bitcoins were dispersed across six different wallets. According to the Special Cell’s IFSO unit, the digital marketer discovered the BTCs missing on July 4 and subsequently filed a complaint.
“On July 4, the accused woman had accompanied her friend to the airport. During the trip, she took the complainant’s phone under the pretext of using it for navigation and transferred all six bitcoins from the wallet to several other wallets, using a tumbler to mix them,” an officer explained.
After the transfer, some of the cryptocurrency was converted to cash through various accounts. The police arrested the woman on July 19 and seized Rs. 1.25 crore in cash, 2.32 BTC, 96,000 USDT, and three mobile phones from the suspects.
The arrested individuals, including Sherry Sharma, 27, from Rohtak, and Ashish Sharma, 24, from Vipin Garden, Delhi, face charges under sections 303(2) for theft, 323 for concealment of property, 61(2) for criminal conspiracy, 3(5) for joint criminal liability, and 317(2) for stolen property of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), as well as Section 66 of the IT Act.