As per CID officials, there should be 142 bitcoins in Paladiya's wallet, 23 are still missing
The CID (crime) on Wednesday recovered 119 bitcoins worth Rs 7.2 crore from Kirit Paladiya's Binance wallet, related to the multi-crore bitcoin extortion and kidnapping case. On Friday, Paladiya, who is the mastermind, was nabbed by CID.
Paladiya refused to cooperate with the officers during the investigation, the officials said. He had refused to share his binance wallet password with the officials, who suspected that extorted bitcoins of Shailesh Bhatt were in it.
When the officials didn't get any help from Paladiya, they reached out a third party cyber expert. With the help of the cyber expert, they were able to crack the password of Paladiya's wallet and recovered around 119 bitcoins worth Rs 7.20 crore. As per the investigation, Paladiya should have 142 bitcoins with him, but only 119 were recovered.
Dipankar Trivedi, DIG of CID (crime), said: "We have begun investigation to recover the 23 missing bitcoins. We are yet to receive any information on the same. We will have to find out if he has transferred or sold the bitcoins to somebody."
It was also revealed during the investigation that Kirit had three different cryptocurrency wallets on his name. The wallets were identified as Dawanda, Blockchain and Binance. Out of which, two of them were empty, while the 119 bitcoins were in the Binance wallet.
Kirit Paladiya had converted the bitcoins to 60 different cryptocurrencies
During investigation, officials found that Kirit didn't have Bitcoins anymore. He had converted his bitcoins to 60 different cryptocurrencies, which were worth the value of 119 bitcoins. He used the Binance wallet as it was one of those wallets through which different cryptocurrencies could be bought through a single medium. Bitcoin is the parent currency in the entire cryptocurrencies universe, if a buyer or investor wants to buy any other cryptocurrency like Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), Zcash (ZEC), Dash, Ripple (XRP), Monero, etc., he should have bitcoins, otherwise it is not possible.
THE CON NET
As per officials, 176 bitcoins were extorted from Bhatt’s bitcoin wallet. Paladiya had made a deal with Amreli SP Jagdish Patel, Inspector of LCB Anant Patel, other policemen, lawyer Ketan Patel, Ketan’s brother Jatin Patel and Nalin Kotadiya. The conspirators were promised a percentage of the bitcoins money worth around Rs 9.45 crore — 15 % for Nalin Kotadiya, the lawyer and his brother and 15% for the police.
Binance Wallet
Binance has a wallet to store all listed cryptocurrencies. It is a popular Chinese cryptocurrency exchange, which is known for its crypto to crypto exchange services. Through this you can exchange trading fees/limits, security aspects, and customer support, etc, all under one roof.
Patel moves court
Naresh Patel, whose vehicle was allegedly used to kidnap 2 people in the Bitcoin case, has moved a petition in the Sessions Court seeking return of his assets.
Allegations
Nalin Kotadiya claimed that Shailesh Bhatt and two of his associates kidnapped two investors identified as Piyush Savaliya and Dhaval Malvani, members of an investment firm and extorted 2300 cryptocurrencies from their wallet on February 1. This is how Bhatt got the bitcoins in his wallet. As per official sources, Malvani is believed to have held large quantities of cryptocurrencies. Bhatt and his associates pretended to be income tax officers to extort the currencies from him and Savaliya.
CID officials working on 1st phase now
As per official sources, the 176 bitcoin extortion and kidnapping case is just the first phase of the case, there are two more levels, which will unravel in the course of the investigation. To ascertain the source of bitcoin, the allegation of 2300 bitcoin scam and other several aspects of the case will be investigated. Right now, however, they are working on solving the extortion of 176 bitcoin case. Later, they will look into how Shailesh Bhatt got the cryptocurrencies.
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