Mumbai: The Charkop Police on Wednesday arrested a man for allegedly duping multiple people to the tune of ₹1.50 crore by luring them with high returns on a weekly basis if they invest in cryptocurrency.
According to the complainant, Aatish Patil (24), a gym trainer by profession was told by one Arpita Dey, whom he used to train, about accused Jagdish Laadi, saying that he dealt in cryptocurrency and bitcoin trading.
Subsequently, in October 2021, Patil met Laadi through Dey at her Charkop residence, where he was shown several presentations by Laadi and he promised a 25% return on his investment within a week.
Since Patil was convinced, he introduced his brother Aashish (29) to Laadi, who also showed ₹1 crore savings in his account, and assured them that there was no risk of getting cheated.
Following this next month, the two brothers invested ₹6 lakh. In his statement, Patil stated that when they did not get their promised profit, they called up Laadi but did not get any response.
After a few days when the Patil brothers went to Laadi’s house to ask for their money, they learnt through one Anita Pardeshi, who had invested ₹10 lakh with Laadi, that he had cheated several other people by promising them huge returns.
“Patil then contacted other people who had been cheated similarly by Laadi and approached the Charkop police to file a complaint against him,” said a police officer from the Charkop police station.
Based on the complaint, the police registered an FIR under sections 420 (cheating) and 406 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code against Laadi for cheating people to the tune of ₹1.5 crore and arrested him. “We are now finding out how many more people Laadi had cheated and the extent of the fraud,” added the officer.