The Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted raids on Wednesday at the premises of Gaurav Mehta, an employee of audit firm Sarathi Associates, in connection with an alleged bitcoin scam. The searches were carried out in Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
The raids follow a cybercrime complaint filed by Supriya Sule, a Member of Parliament from the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharad Pawar faction), with the Election Commission of India. The complaint alleged the use of bitcoin to fund the ongoing Maharashtra Assembly elections and targeted Gaurav Mehta and former Indian Police Service officer Ravindranath Patil from Pune.
On the eve of the Maharashtra Assembly elections, Ravindranath Patil alleged that Supriya Sule and Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole had misappropriated bitcoins from a 2018 cryptocurrency fraud case and used them to fund the elections. Speaking to ANI, Patil accused Amitabh Gupta, the then Commissioner of Police, Pune, and Bhagyashri Nautake, the then Deputy Commissioner of Police handling cybercrime investigations, of being involved in the misappropriation.
“My company called me as a cryptocurrency expert to investigate a case in 2018. I was arrested in that case in 2022 under allegations of fraud. I spent 14 months in jail after a trial. During that time, I was wondering what had happened, what the case was, and why I was trapped. There were other colleagues also with me. We were working on finding out the truth. A witness against us, Gaurav Mehta, who is an employee of an audit firm named Sarathi Associates,” Patil stated.
“A day before yesterday, he called me multiple times for 4-5 hours, but I did not respond. Finally, when I responded, he told me that in 2018, when Amit Bharadwaj was arrested, he had a cryptocurrency hardware wallet. That wallet was replaced by the then Commissioner Amitabh Gupta, and another wallet was kept. We were arrested, but the real perpetrators were Amitabh Gupta and his team. He (Gaurav Mehta) took the names of two IPS officers, Amitabh Gupta and Bhagyashri Nautake. He took two people’s names, one is Supriya Sule and the other is Nana Patole. He then told me that in this assembly election, bitcoins are being used,” Patil alleged further.
Patil also claimed to have voice notes allegedly sent by Gaurav Mehta. “Supriya Sule has sent three voice note messages in which she is heard asking Gaurav to encash bitcoins as the funds are needed for the elections. She is also heard assuring him not to worry about the inquiries and once they come to power, they will handle them,” Patil added.
However, Supriya Sule refuted all allegations, calling them completely false. Sule said, “I have filed a defamation case and a criminal case. I am ready to answer his (Sudhanshu Trivedi’s) five questions wherever he wants—time of his choice, place of his choice, and platform of his choice. I am ready to answer him because all the allegations are completely false. All lies.”
Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole also denied the allegations and claimed that the voice in the purported audio clips mentioned by Ravindra Patil was not his. “The IPS officer brought by BJP, Ravindra Patil, is not even an IPS officer. BJP has become a party of lies. On the eve of elections, they are doing all this. My voice is not there in the audio. I am a farming man; I don’t even understand Bitcoin,” Patole stated.
“We have given a legal notice and filed an FIR. We will also file a defamation case against them. Be it Sudhanshu Trivedi or Ravindra Patil. Everything will be clear soon. BJP is only lying. We will fight them legally. I have nothing to do with this. We will file defamation. Our government is going to be formed in Maharashtra, and we will conduct a proper inquiry into this,” he added.
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Meanwhile, both the BJP and NCP have demanded a thorough investigation into the allegations made by Ravindra Patil.
