The special police squad continued to investigate and discovered that the fraud had an estimated value of ₹2,000 crore. This team is now requesting support from the income tax department and the Ministry of Finance’s Financial Intelligence Unit. Their goal is to ascertain the whereabouts of all the funds and their investments by the fraudsters. Even more significant organizations like SEBI and RBI are attempting to assist them.
Additionally, the team found some crucial evidence on the devious ways in which the fraudsters used the Him Janseva Foundation, a charity. We discussed the emergence of this cryptocurrency fraud in the Mandi area of Himachal Pradesh in our previous article on this topic. The whole details are available for reading here.
Unveiling of the Scam
This scandal came to light when Hoshyar Singh, an independent MLA from Kangra district’s Dehra assembly sector, discussed it in September during the Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha’s monsoon session. He said that a large number of people in our state had fallen victim to con artists using virtual currency. In just two years, more than 58 complaints concerning this were received, according to deputy chief minister Mukesh Agnihotri. They chose to form a special team under the direction of the deputy inspector in order to thoroughly investigate this issue.
Charity Betrayed: Him Janseva Foundation becomes a Front
The Special Investigation Team has uncovered some very significant evidence on scammers who were defrauding individuals through the Him Janseva Foundation, a charitable organization. The Him Janseva Foundation was set up by these con artists, who went by the names Subhash Sharma, Hemraj, Sukhdev, and Abhishek.
Pic Credit- coincentral
They presented the foundation as a humanitarian organization. Under the pretense of aiding others, they conducted many monthly transactions totaling crores through the foundation’s bank account. However, in reality, they were defrauding many others of their money.
To do this, they solicited investments from thousands of residents of the state, which they deposited into the foundation’s bank account. They could prevent detection by hiding from the Income Tax Department in this manner. Despite conducting several large-scale transactions over a period of three to four years, the Income Tax Department failed to detect anything. According to the authorities, cash was used for the majority of the transactions, which added to the complexity of the whole situation.
The Targeting
The cunning fraudsters responsible for a massive ₹ 2,500-crore cryptocurrency fraud in Himachal Pradesh conned those who received compensation for the acquisition of their land for road construction. They also sent its top agents on opulent vacations to exotic locations like Thailand and Dubai in an attempt to inspire them. They spent ₹ 3.5 crore on around 2,000 of these trips.
The scammers targeted those who received payment for having their land taken by the state for four-lane construction, according to the Special Investigation Team investigating this scam. These people were persuaded to invest their money in fictitious cryptocurrencies by them in the districts of Mandi, Hamirpur, and Kangra.
The ₹2,000 crore charity scam in Himachal Pradesh is a sobering reminder of the weaknesses in humanitarian organizations and the requirement for strong security measures. Important lessons have been learnt as a result of this scam’s exposure, opening the door for stricter laws, more openness, and more public awareness.
