Rs 2,200-cr crypto scam: Kingpin Bhupesh Arora declared fugitive

In an bid passed connected Wednesday, the tribunal of Justice N Longshithung Ezung successful Dimapur allowed an exertion filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that Arora beryllium declared a ‘fugitive economical offender’ and his properties beryllium confiscated.

The HPZ Token scam is an alleged concern scam tally by Delhi-based Bhupesh Arora wherever investors were promised immense gains done crypto currency transactions. Most of its victims were recovered to beryllium successful Nagaland and Assam. Based connected a Nagaland constabulary FIR, ED began its probe successful 2022.  Later, Assam constabulary and CBI excessively registered FIRs.

ED probe has recovered that wealth successful the scam was swindled done much than 140 ammunition companies and 200 slope accounts crossed 20 states. Most of the ammunition companies were opened successful Delhi (52), followed by Karnataka (26) and Haryana (19). Most of the slope accounts were opened successful Delhi (84), followed by Karnataka (37) and Maharashtra (26).

The racket besides utilized 8 outgo gateways to swindle adjacent to Rs 200 crore. These included Razorpay, Easebuzz, PayU, Paytm, CashFree, WunderBaked, AgreePay and Speedypay.

According to ED, the modus operandi adopted by the fraudsters was to archetypal lure the victims to put successful the institution connected the pretext of doubling their concern done the app HPZ Token. The scam came to airy successful June 2021 and subsequently the fraudsters stopped the payments to the investors and the website became inaccessible.