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Maharashtra Bitcoin Scam, Maharashtra Election 2024: A major political controversy hit Maharashtra just hours before the state voted in the Assembly elections on Wednesday. Former IPS officer Ravindranath Patil claimed to possess voice recordings, allegedly of NCP (SP) MP Supriya Sule and Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole, showing that cash converted from Bitcoins seized by the Pune police in a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme investigation was used to fund the election campaign.
Both Sule and Patole strongly denied the allegations, calling them baseless, while the BJP, which was itself embroiled in cash-for-votes allegations involving senior leader Vinod Tawde on Tuesday, demanded a thorough investigation into the matter.
At the heart of this controversy are two cryptocurrency investigations by the Pune police: the Ponzi scheme case, in which Patil worked as an expert forensic auditor in 2018; and the 2022 Bitcoin misappropriation case, in which Patil himself was accused of embezzling Bitcoins seized during the Ponzi scheme probe.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) from the Cyber Crime Cell of the Pune police investigated two offences linked to a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme registered in 2018, which had at its centre a company named GainBitcoin and its affiliates.
These two offences were among close to 40 cases registered across India against GainBitcoin and its affiliates. A total of 17 individuals were arrested by the Pune police, which alleged that the masterminds were brothers Ajay Bharadwaj and the now-deceased Amit Bharadwaj. The brothers and their co-accused, through their multiple companies, were accused of cheating thousands of people across India by promising high returns on cryptocurrency investments.
They were booked in multiple cases across India and also faced money laundering charges by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). While Amit died in 2022, Ajay was never arrested though.
In a February 2024 statement, the ED said the accused “had collected huge amounts of funds in the form of Bitcoins (worth Rs 6,600 crore in 2017) from gullible public with false promises of 10 Bitcoins per month in returns”. “The collected Bitcoins were supposed to be utilised for Bitcoin mining and investors were supposed to get huge returns. But the promoters cheated the investors and concealed the ill-gotten Bitcoins in obscure online wallets,” the Central agency had said.
One of the complainants in the 2018 case investigated by the Pune police later approached the office of the Additional Director General (ADG) of Police for the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Maharashtra and alleged wrongdoing on the part of cyber experts involved in the probe, including IPS officer-turned-forensic auditor Ravindranath Patil and cyber crime expert Pankaj Ghode, both of whom has assisted the Pune police in the 2018 SIT.
While in 2020 the Pune police concluded that nothing was found against the cyber experts, the EOW rejected the report and sought a fresh probe.
After the new probe, the Pune police claimed that Ghode and Patil had diverted a chunk of cryptocurrency from the wallets used by the accused in the 2018 case to their own and their accomplices’ wallets. To divert the cryptocurrency, they were accused of using forged screenshots of the blockchain wallets created for the purpose of the initial probe, the Pune police claimed.
In March 2022, the Pune police arrested Patil and Ghode on the charges of misappropriating Bitcoins during the 2018 investigation. Patil was released on bail in May 2023 after 14 months.
At the centre of the controversy now, Patil is an IPS officer of the Jammu and Kashmir cadre of 2004 batch. In 2010, he left government service on medical grounds following a pelvic fracture. He subsequently started working for the global accounting major KPMG as a cyber expert.
In 2018, when the Pune police investigated the multi-crore Bitcoin Ponzi scheme, KPMG was hired for a forensic audit and Patil was the lead investigator for the case.
On November 17, Patil claimed, he was approached by Gaurav Mehta, an expert witness in the 2022 case. “Mehta told me that a hardware Bitcoin wallet seized in the Ponzi scheme investigation was swapped back in 2018 by the then police officials. Mehta said that based on the instructions of Amitabh Gupta (the Pune police commissioner between September 2020 and December 2022), he was selling the Bitcoins in Dubai and elsewhere, and was giving money to Supriya Sule and Nana Patole during the Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections,” Patil told The Indian Express on Wednesday. Gupta could not be reached despite repeated attempts.
“Based on voice notes and details sent to me by Mehta, it seems that the misappropriated Bitcoins were sold and, via the hawala route, the money was pumped into the Maharashtra elections. These are violations of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA),” Patil added.
Both Sule and Patole have refuted the allegations, and taken legal steps in response.
In a related development, PTI reported that Mehta incidentally faced action by the ED on Wednesday after the latest allegations surfaced. The ED carried out searches at his Raipur residence.
Patil said he has also written to the Election Commission on the matter and intends to file a PIL over his claims. “I have written to the EC that based on the voice notes and documentary evidence about a certain cryptocurrency hardware wallet, it seems that said wallet was misappropriated and they were used to fund both Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections this year. I have said that since high-ranking officials and senior politicians are involved, the gravity of the matter should be considered and a detailed probe be conducted into the matter. I have said that I will be available to give any evidence if needed. I am also approaching the High Court and I will be filing a PIL in this case soon as a lot of investors have started approaching me now,” he said.
