India's Ruling Party Caught Up in Bitcoin Scam
India’s largest political party, the Indian National Congress (INC), accused the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) of orchestrating what could equate to a $12.78 billion bitcoin scam on Thursday.
INC spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil claims that the illicit money was converted to cryptocurrency via ‘hawala’ transactions whereby none of the funds were actually moving.
Gohil said the “mega bitcoin scam” has been unravelled by the Gujarat police but none of the kingpins has been arrested, according to the Hindustan Times.
BJP spokesperson Anil Baluni said on Thursday, “Even as the BJP scrambles for answers to explain how the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), whose director is BJP President Amit Shah, received old currency worth Rs 745.58 crore in just 5 days and how Rs 3118.51 crore were deposited in 11 district co-operative banks linked with BJP leaders in Gujarat itself, a new ‘Mega bitcoin Scam’ worth more than Rs 5000 crore has been unravelled in the state."
He alleged that this is a “multi-layered” scam where illegal hawala transactions, kidnappinga, extortion of cryptocurrency using government authorities at the behest of top BJP leaders in Gujarat has become a norm, according to Baluni.
CCTV footage reportedly shows proof of the police extortion.
None of this can be good for bitcoin, which has struggled to gain ground lost from its near $20,000 peak price in December.
The price of bitcoin was sitting just under $7000 early afternoon Eastern Standard Time.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
