Pune: Hours earlier than the Maharashtra Meeting elections, former IPS officer Ravindra Nath Patil on Tuesday made explosive claims, alleging that NCP (Sharad Pawar faction) chief Supriya Sule and Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole (each MVA companions) have been concerned in a cryptocurrency rip-off.
He accused the 2 leaders of utilizing Bitcoin manipulation to fund election campaigns. Patil additional alleged that the money obtained from cryptocurrency dealings is being utilised within the present election marketing campaign in Maharashtra. Comparable manipulation has been resorted to throughout Lok Sabha elections in 2024, he added.
Talking to IANS, Patil implicated Pune’s former Police Commissioner Amitabh Gupta and cybercrime investigator Bhagyashree Navatke, claiming that they have been concerned within the Bitcoin rip-off and had obtained safety from political leaders Sule and Patole.
Sharing the main points of the entire rip-off, Patil defined that in 2018, his firm had employed him (Patil) as a cryptocurrency skilled to research the rip-off. Nevertheless, in 2022, he was arrested on fraud prices and spent 14 months in jail. Throughout this time, he was making an attempt to establish as to why he was framed. He and his colleagues continued working to get to the info. And eventually, they’ve come throughout startling info, he added.
Patil revealed {that a} key witness within the case, Gaurav Mehta—an worker of an audit agency—had contacted him a number of occasions up to now few days. When Patil lastly responded, Mehta shared particulars concerning the 2018 cryptocurrency fraud investigation. Mehta alleged that in the course of the arrest of Amit Bhardwaj, a cryptocurrency dealer, a {hardware} pockets containing Bitcoin was seized.
Nevertheless, based on Mehta, the pockets was changed by one other one allegedly beneath the course of Amitabh Gupta, the then-Pune Police Commissioner. Mehta claimed that Patil and his colleagues have been arrested unjustly, whereas the actual culprits have been Gupta and his group.
Patil additionally accused Mehta of naming Supriya Sule and Nana Patole within the rip-off. Mehta alleged that they have been utilizing the money obtained by means of Bitcoin manipulation to fund election campaigns, together with the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the present Maharashtra Meeting elections. Patil claimed that Mehta, beneath Gupta’s course, made a number of journeys to Dubai to transform Bitcoin into money, which was then used to finance election actions in Maharashtra.
Patil instructed IANS that Mehta despatched a number of voice recordings on ‘Sign’ — social media app — together with messages from Supriya Sule requesting money in alternate for Bitcoin. Within the recordings, Sule allegedly assured Mehta that there was no want to fret concerning the investigation, as they’d deal with it as soon as they got here to energy.
One other recording reportedly featured Nana Patole, inquiring concerning the delay within the money transaction. Although the audio messages can be found with IANS, the company doesn’t vouch for the veracity of the clips.
Patil additional claimed that one other recording featured Amitabh Gupta demanding ₹50 crore. In one other dialog, Gupta allegedly mentioned that he had created 4 cryptocurrency wallets in Patil’s and his colleague Ghode’s names and that transactions had been constructed from these wallets. Gupta allegedly prompt that if an investigation came about, each Patil and Ghode could be implicated, and we’d be secure, mentioned Patil referring to chats with Gaurav Mehta.
Patil added that Mehta had already offered Bitcoin value ₹150 crore, and he nonetheless held lots of of crores value of it. He claimed that this remaining cryptocurrency was getting used for election-related funding. Patil expressed his readiness to cooperate with investigating companies, stating that he had all the required screenshots and audio recordings to help his claims. In keeping with him, Bhagyashree Navatke can also be heard saying, “We’d like money Gaurav, I’m coming to Mumbai.”
Patil was in truth arrested in 2022 by Pune Police in reference to a multi-crore cryptocurrency fraud case. Patil, a 2004-batch IPS officer, had labored within the company sector as a cybersecurity skilled since 2010. In 2018, he was appointed as a forensic auditor within the Bitcoin fraud case.
