India like any other country has many criminals and today, cryptocurrencies offer these criminals new ways to extort money from their victims. Former BJP MLA Nalin Kotadiya is an absconder in the multi-crore bitcoin extortion case where he received 15% of the 176 bitcoins stolen worth about 9.45Cr INR or about $1.38M. He was being probed by the state (CID) Criminal Investigation Department-Crime wing.
It has now been reported by Business-Standard that additional sessions judge P G Tamakuwala declared Kotadiya a "proclaimed offender" (absconder) under section 82 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC ) in response to an application by the CID, and asked him to appear before the court within 30 days.
Several policemen including a Superintendent of Police have been arrested so far while Nalin himself has been absconding and has not been traced yet.
Surat-based realty company owner and builder Shailesh Bhatt, had alleged that policemen from Amreli kidnapped him and his business partner Kirit Paladia from Gandhinagar on February 9 and extorted 176 bitcoins worth Rs 9 crore owned by Kirit.
Upon kidnapping they were forced to transfer them Bitcoin cryptocurrency and allegedly Nalin Kotadiya was involved in conspiring against Shailesh. Such kidnappings where Bitcoin is used for ransom money has happened in many other parts of the world.
It's a growing concern these days where anyone who holds cryptos can be held at gun point and forced to transfer their tokens over to someone else.
Growing popularity of cryptocurrencies have also led a slight increase in crimes related to cryptocurrencies. Since transactions are irreversible, extortionists can get away easier if they are able to escape from law.
India as a country deals with a great deal of systemic corruption and has politicians and parliamentarians with a history of criminal offence and charges of corruption. My hope for the future of blockchain technology is that it helps in eradication of such corruption in the government through various use case application of this technology.
As you can understand from this case, RBI and the Indian government have some valid reasons for discouraging use of cryptocurrencies. Most people who are involved in speculating on these digital tokens are largely ignorant about them. For scammers and ponzi scheme owners, cryptos have opened several new doors and provided them the means to scam people out of their hard earned income.
Politicians in India feel they are accountable to none and that's unfortunately the case for many of them. As for this offender, I hope CID is able to nab him and put him behind bars. I'm also glad CID is there to watch over the corruption in the police force in the country!
What are your thoughts on this matter. Have you come across a situation in your own life where someone was forced to give up their cryptos due to threat to personal safety?
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