MUMBAI: A rogue Indian police constable accused of kidnapping a local cryptocurrency trader and demanding a Bitcoin ransom worth $40 million has been arrested along with seven accomplices, authorities said Wednesday.
Dilip Tukaram Khandare had learned that a fellow resident of Pune, east of the commercial capital Mumbai, owned a lucrative Bitcoin wallet and hatched a plan to abduct him.
He and his co-conspirators allegedly abducted 38-year-old Vinay Naik on January 14 and demanded he transfer his entire digital currency holdings, worth three billion rupees ($40 million), along with another 800,000 rupees in cash.
Naik was abruptly let go the next day when the kidnappers realised the police were on their tail, and the perpetrators were detained on Tuesday.
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"We have taken eight people including a police constable who planned the abduction into custody," a senior police officer confirmed to AFP.
Cryptocurrency remains largely unregulated in India despite burgeoning local trading platforms and glitzy celebrity endorsements attracting millions of new traders.
The burgeoning market was banned in 2018 after a surge in fraudulent transactions but restrictions were lifted by the Supreme Court two years later.
The government this week announced a 30 percent tax on profits from virtual currencies and the introduction of a "digital rupee" backed by India's central bank.
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