Indian Bitconnect Dev Arrested for Promoting Shi**y Multi-Billion Scam

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A web developer for one of cryptocurrency’s biggest scams has been arrested. Dhaval Mavani, who developed Bitconnect’s website was apprehended in New Delhi after being deported from Abu Dhabi. A warrant for his arrest was issued last year in August, per the Times of India.

Mavani was reportedly hired in 2017 by the alleged head of Bitconnect in Asia, Divyesh Darji, to build a website for the $3.2 billion cryptocurrency scam. Police believe he possesses extensive knowledge of Bitconnect and also actively promoted the scam. He is also a witness in a case in which two businessmen in India’s Gujarat State were allegedly kidnapped and 11,000 Litecoins, 2,256 Bitcoins and cash was extorted from them.

The website developer-cum-Bitconnect promoter is believed to have fled to Abu Dhabi after criminal investigators in the country received a complaint regarding the cryptocurrency scam in July last year.

Hiding in the UAE

According to the Economic Offense Wing of India’s Criminal Investigation Department, had been holed up in the capital of the United Arab Emirates since he fled his home country:

According to his passport details, he had fled to Abu Dhabi from where he deported to Delhi on Tuesday. He did not move anywhere in between that period of around a year.

The website developer is not the first one implicated in the Bitconnect scam in India to be arrested. Darji, who hired Mavani, was the first to be arrested just one month after the first criminal complaint was lodged against Bitconnect in India.

Bitconnect Asia head is a serial scammer

Besides Mavani, Darji’s co-conspirators at the time were Satish Kumbhani and Suresh Gorasiya. Darji was, however, released on bail a few months ago but is now on the run after being implicated in another cryptocurrency scam branded ‘Regal Coin’. Like Bitconnect, Regal Coin was promising unrealistic and guaranteed returns to investors.

While the whereabouts of Gorasiya are unclear, Kumbhani was arrested in June. Besides India, Kumbhani has also been implicated in defrauding investors in ten other countries. He has already been questioned by the FBI as the United States is one of the countries where he promoted Bitconnect.

Earlier this year the FBI had announced that it was seeking the Bitconnect scam victims with a view of aiding its investigations. The FBI did not restrict the nationality of the victims to U.S. citizens only but invited them from all over the world.

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