Indian Police Seize Ethereum Miners in Alleged $15 Million MLM Scheme

Indian police have raided an Ethereum mining installation with its operators allegedly running MLM schemes that raked in nearly INR 100 crores ($15 million) from investors.

The Cyber Cell unit of Delhi’s police department has reportedly raided a 4,000 square-foot complex used to mine Ethereum’s token cryptocurrency ‘ether’ after its operators were arrested on accusations of running multiple cryptocurrency-based multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes.

The two individuals behind the mining operation are alleged to have conned several victims of over ₹ 100 crores (approx. $15 million) by soliciting them to invest in gainbitcoin.com and bits2btc.com, two purported investment schemes that promised returns in bitcoin. Both websites are now defunct.

According to local media, these proceeds were used to by Ethereum and fund a steadfast operation that involved mining its token cryptocurrency.

Police from the Indian capital raided the 4,000 square-foot mining installation in Dehradun, a city north of Delhi, seizing 100 Ethereum mining rigs along with 500 graphics cards and servers.

“We had already arrested the owners of the mining firm Kamal Singh and Vijay Kumar, 13 days ago. And, based on the further intel, we have now raided their mining firm in Dehradun,” Delhi Police official KPS Malhotra told Inc42.

Read more at CCN.