Recently an old financial firm with its registered office in Kerala had to shut shop due to financial issues. The well-known popular group of Kerala controlled by Thomas Daniel and his family siphoned investor's money and diverted it to their other ventures against law.
Thomas Daniel was booked by law enforcement in 2014 for accepting unaccounted money as a deposit and was charged for money laundering.
The institution which was once popular went reportedly bankrupt and its directors were arrested from different part of the country.
Police have received complaints from depositors for amounts accounting to Rs. 600 crores.
Reports indicate that one of the directors told police that the total liabilities of the group accounts for almost Rs.1400 crores. Law enforcement believes that the Rs 800 crore difference will be black money or unaccounted money.
The directors of the company were planning to escape to Australia and prominent media outlets received proof that they were planning to do so.
Media outlets also uncovered proofs of Bitcoin purchases. Officials say that they must have converted a large portion of their liquid assets to Bitcoin or cryptocurrency so that it can be withdrawn from any part of the world.
The proofs uncovered by the media shows that they didn't buy bitcoin via exchanges but from private individuals.
Law enforcement is now looking into all of their banking transactions in order to trace the money.
The news of the link of this scam with cryptocurrency comes out when the government of India is looking forward to a bill to regulate cryptocurrency.
Since the supreme court of India lifted the 2018 RBI circular which prevented banks and financial institutions from dealing with cryptocurrency. The government looked upon RBI for a possible law that prevents or regulates cryptocurrency in the country.
It is the untraceable nature of cryptocurrency that enables it to be used for money laundering and criminal activities. This is the very reason for governments across the world pushing for regulatory laws on cryptocurrency.
