Supriya Sule involved in cryptocurrency scam to fund polls, claims ex-IPS office

Hours before the Maharashtra Assembly Elections former Indian Police Service IPS officer Ravindra Nath Patil on Tuesday made explosive claims alleging that Nationalist Congress Party Sharadchandra Pawar leader Supriya Sule and Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole were involved in a cryptocurrency scamHowever the NCP SP leader has denied all the allegations made against her in a post on social media platform XFamiliar tactics of spreading false information to manipulate the righteous voters are being resorted to a night before the polling day We have filed a criminal complaint to the Honrsquoble ECI amp the Cyber crime department against the fake allegations made of bitcoinhellip pictwittercomg8Selv1DFkmdash Supriya Sule supriya_sule November 19 2024According to news agency IANS Patil accused the two leaders whose parties are a part of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi MVA alliance of using Bitcoin manipulation to fund election campaigns Patil further alleged that the cash obtained from cryptocurrency dealings is being utilised in the campaign for Maharashtra Assembly Elections 2024 He further alleged that similar manipulation had been resorted to during the recently held Lok Sabha Elections tooSpeaking to IANS Patil implicated Punes former Police Commissioner Amitabh Gupta and cybercrime investigator Bhagyashree Navatke claiming that they were involved in the Bitcoin scam but had received protection from Sule and PatoleSharing the details of the whole scam Patil explained that in 2018 his company had hired him Patil as a cryptocurrency expert to investigate the scam However in 2022 he was arrested on fraud charges and spent 14 months in jail During this time he was trying to ascertain as to why he was framed He and his colleagues continued working to get to the facts And finally they have come across startling facts he addedPatil revealed that a key witness in the case Gaurav Mehta mdash an employee of an audit firm mdash had contacted him several times in the past few days When Patil finally responded Mehta shared details about the 2018 cryptocurrency fraud investigation Mehta alleged that during the arrest of Amit Bhardwaj a cryptocurrency trader a hardware wallet containing Bitcoin was seizedHowever according to Mehta the wallet was replaced by another one allegedly under the Guptas direction Mehta further claimed that Patil and his colleagues were arrested unjustly while the real culprits were Gupta and his teamAccording to Patil Mehta had named Sule and Nana Patole in the scam and alleged that the two politicians were using the cash obtained through Bitcoin manipulation to fund election campaigns including the Lok Sabha polls and the current Maharashtra Assembly elections Patil claimed that Mehta under Guptas direction made multiple trips to Dubai to convert Bitcoin into cash which was then used to finance election activities in MaharashtraPatil told IANS that Mehta sent several voice recordings on Signal mdash social media app mdash including messages from Sule requesting cash in exchange for Bitcoin In the recordings Sule allegedly assured Mehta that there was no need to worry about the investigation as they would handle it once they came to powerAnother recording reportedly featured Patole inquiring about the delay in the cash transaction Though the audio messages are available with IANS the agency claimed that it does not vouch for the veracity of the clipsPatil also spoke of another recording featured Gupta demanding Rs 50 crore In another conversation Gupta allegedly said that he had created four cryptocurrency wallets in the names of Patil and his colleague and that transactions had been made from these wallets Gupta allegedly suggested that if an investigation took place both Patil and his colleague would be implicated and we would be safe said Patil referring to chats with MehtaThe former IPS officer added that Mehta had already sold Bitcoin worth Rs 150 crore and he still held hundreds of crores worth of it He claimed that this remaining cryptocurrency was being used for electionrelated funding Patil expressed his readiness to cooperate with investigating agencies stating that he had all the necessary screenshots and audio recordings to support his claims According to him Navatke is also heard saying ldquoWe need cash Gaurav I am coming to MumbairdquoPatil was in fact arrested in 2022 by Pune Police in connection with a multicrore cryptocurrency fraud case He is a 2004batch IPS officer and had worked in the corporate sector as a cybersecurity expert since 2010 In 2018 he was appointed as a forensic auditor in the Bitcoin fraud caseWith IANS inputs