New Delhi, March 17 (IANS) A Delhi court on Tuesday sent Ayush Varshney, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Darwin Labs Private Limited, to judicial custody till March 30 in connection with the alleged multi-thousand-crore GainBitcoin cryptocurrency fraud case.

Varshney was produced before the Rouse Avenue Court following his arrest by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is probing the alleged scam estimated to be worth around Rs 20,000 crore.

The investigation concerns an alleged Ponzi scheme by Variabletech Pte Ltd, which promised unusually high returns from cryptocurrency investments but allegedly misappropriated the funds collected from investors.

According to the CBI, Varshney was intercepted by immigration authorities at the Mumbai airport while attempting to flee the country for Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Officials said he was detained on the basis of a Look Out Circular issued against him and was subsequently handed over to the CBI, which formally arrested him and produced him before the court.

The probe agency said that this marks the first arrest in the case, which is linked to the GainBitcoin scheme that began in 2015.

The scheme was allegedly spearheaded by Amit Bhardwaj (now deceased), along with his brother Ajay Bhardwaj and their network. The CBI had taken over the investigation into multiple FIRs linked to the GainBitcoin allegations following a Supreme Court order dated December 13, 2023, directing the agency to act as the common investigating authority.

During the course of the probe, the role of Darwin Labs and its co-founders, including Varshney, Sahil Baghla and Nikunj Jain, came under scrutiny.

According to investigators, the company allegedly developed and deployed the MCAP crypto token along with its ERC-20 smart contract and provided the technological infrastructure for the alleged fraud. The infrastructure reportedly included the Bitcoin mining platform GBMiners.com, a Bitcoin payment gateway, the Coin Bank wallet and the GainBitcoin investor portal used by participants in the scheme.

The CBI has said that the investigation is ongoing and that further arrests and developments are likely as it continues to examine the network behind the alleged cryptocurrency fraud.

–IANS

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