Odisha EOW Issues Crypto Trade Alert & Advisory; Check Details

Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha on Wednesday issued an advisory for the crypto traders after a massive scam was detected recently.

During investigation in a case related to an online ponzi app scam that used morphed photographs of celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani, Sachin Tendulkar, the EOW found some startling facts.

The probe showed that some WhatsApp numbers operated from China are being used to lure the Indian Crypto traders to sell the crypto currency worth hundreds of crores of rupees to the scammers sitting outside the country.

The China-based scammers usually offer higher/ lucrative rates (compared to market rates) to lure Indian crypto traders. These scammers generally meet them on various crypto exchange platforms and establish one to one link to make the deal.

However, these scammers prefer P2P deal (Peer to Peer deal) instead of exchange based deal.

Once the deal is struck, the scammers transfer the money from their India based shell companies/ enterprises’ bank account to crypto-traders and in turn, Crypto-traders transfer the Crypto currencies to scammer’s account. Thus money is siphoned out of India.

In its advisory to crypto traders, the EOW said that such traders must verify the antecedent of crypto buyers especially when the amount is huge. Crypto traders must check the details of company to check whether it is a genuine or shell company, it said.

Generally these shell companies’ are newly created having very low authorized and paid up capitals. They should avoid P2P trade with suspicious buyers.

Advisory to Crypto-Traders

• Crypto-traders must verify the antecedent of crypto buyers especially when the amount is huge;
• Crypto traders must check the details of company to check whether it’s a genuine or shell company;
• Generally these shell companies’ are newly created having very low authorized and paid up capitals;
• If they are offered higher/ better rate then prevailing market rate, it should be seen suspiciously;
• They should avoid P2P trade with suspicious buyers;
• While chatting on WhatsApp they should insist on video chat so that they can see the person on other side;
• In case of any suspicion, they should report the matter to police/112/1930.