In a major embarrassment for the Thane Police, the Mumbra police unit has come under fire for what legal experts are calling a "spectacularly botched" investigation into a ₹71.6 lakh cryptocurrency fraud. The arrest of CoinDCX co-founders Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal — whisked away from Bengaluru in a high-profile raid — has collapsed within 48 hours, with a local court granting them bail and questioning the very basis of the police action. The drama began when a Kausa-based insurance advisor claimed he was duped by "CoinDCX representatives."
The case further crumbled when the complainant's own affidavit revealed he had never actually met the real founders. The "Sumit" and "Neeraj" he interacted with in Mumbra were scammers using the founders' names — a fact the police failed to verify via basic tower location records or travel history, which would have proven the founders were not even in the city at the time. Financial experts also pointed out that the defrauded money landed in private third-party bank accounts with no connection to CoinDCX's corporate coffers.
This case was a copy of a similar case registered by the Nallasopara police last year. Even though that case was overturned in a day, the Mumbra police are believed to have received good "mileage" from the high-profile action.