The CBI has filed a chargesheet against a Delhi-resident who allegedly posed as a Canadian government official and coerced his targets into transferring their assets to crypto wallets, before siphoning those off with his accomplices, officials said on Tuesday.The agency has named Sahil Pal, Himanshu and Ashish Bhambhani as the accused in its chargesheet filed under the Indian Penal Code sections related to criminal conspiracy, cheating and extortion, besides provisions of the Information Technology Act, they said.The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had booked the trio on May 11 on input from Canadian authorities, the officials said.Pal has approached a special court seeking default bail, claiming that since the chargesheet was not filed within 60 days of his arrest, he is eligible for relief.The federal agency had booked the trio for allegedly posing as Canadian government officials to cheat Quebec-based Trishan Goussard in September last year.They allegedly asked Goussard to deposit CAD 7,006 (around Rs 4.35 lakh at present exchange rates) in a crypto wallet to avoid several fraud charges on his compromised social insurance number, the agency has said.An unsuspecting Goussard deposited the amount through a Bitcoin ATM. The wallet was last active on the Binance application through an IP address that had 103 instances of logs linked to a mobile phone number registered in the name of Bhambani, it was alleged.”Their modus operandi involved providing fake technical support consultation to unsuspecting victims and coercing them into transferring cryptocurrency funds. These ill-gotten cryptocurrency assets were subsequently routed through multiple crypto wallets, ultimately ending up in the perpetrators’ crypto accounts,” a CBI spokesperson said.Edited By: chingkheinganbi mayengbamPublished On: Oct 3, 2023Must Watch
CBI files chargesheet against 3 crypto scammers for cheating Canadian citizen
