Yet another cryptocurrency scam has surfaced in which hundreds of innocent investors lost crores of money. Manish Bansal, Debashish Pattnaik, Amit Kumar Vaish, Harendra Pratap Singh and Vivek Kumar were masterminds behind the scam according to the pieces of evidence provided by the victims in Dubai.
According to the information received by the source, in November 2017, the above group approached many investors in India and Dubai and lured investors promising significant return and lured them to invest in their new cryptocurrency namely Drachma Coin. Later they renamed it as DCoin. The launch event of the coin was held in Cambodia on 14th December 2017 which was attended by about 250 investors. They collected a significant amount of money from Dubai investors alone. Their telegram group shows more than 1500 investors from various parts of the world and it seems that they have duped their investors of hundreds of crore rupees. They used to manipulate coin rates on the website (www.drachmacoin.io) and used it to lure investors.
According to reports, Debashish Pattnaik is the chairman of a settled business based in Cambodia, by the name of D&D Group. The other culprits Manish, Amit, Harendra and Vivek are habitual offenders and have been reportedly accused of cheating investors before. Allegedly, the group is said to have been involved in money laundering and Hawala business as well. It’s being said that Vivek is the frontman of the group in Dubai. He is said to operate companies for Hawala operation.
A similar scam was busted by Maharashtra police in 2018 popularly known as MTC scam. Similarly, Drachma Coin was established which lured investors by offering huge returns and bonus coins. They collected huge amounts of cash from investors and routed it to India through hawala.
Investors in Dubai filed a criminal case against the culprits in Dubai Court and the Court punished them with imprisonment and deportation. Investors also filed a civil case against them and they will not be able to travel to UAE. As soon as they got to know about the decision passed by the court, all the culprits, except Vivek, fled to India. However, investors are in the process to send Red Corner Notice to them through Interpol to bring them back to Dubai to face the criminal charges.
Investors are in the process of filing criminal cases in India and are approaching EOW and ED regarding the case. The investors later found out that the culprits have purchased properties and new vehicles and started their own companies namely Cyberclip Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and Magicbunch Media Zone Pvt. Ltd. They did numerous foreign trips with family to Dubai, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore & Hong Kong, etc.) As they didn’t have a source of financial income, it’s being said by victims that they are spending the money which they got from duping their previous investors.
Investors later found out that the culprits have purchased properties and new vehicles and started their own company namely Cyberclip Technologies Pvt. Ltd. & Magicbunch Media Zone Pvt. Ltd. They did numerous foreign trips with family to Dubai, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore & Hong Kong, etc.) Apparently, they do not have any source of income and all these lavish spendings are from the money they duped of innocent investors.
Amit Kumar Vaish a resident of Kirti Nagar New Delhi and Harendra Pratap Singh a resident of Pilibhit, UP, have stopped responding to investors calls whereas Manish is not traceable.
(We also tried to contact the alleged mastermind – Vivek through the victim in order to know his side of the story. He didn’t respond to the calls .)