NE NEWS SERVICE
SURAT, AUG 26
City-based builder and prime accused in the 2018 bitcoin case, Shailesh Bhatt, was arrested on Wednesday in Delhi in connection with an extortion case lodged against him by a builder in Surat, a senior police officer said.
“Based on the inputs provided by the Surat police, the Delhi Police has arrested Bhatt. Bhatt has been wanted in our case. Since we knew about his location, we took Delhi police’s help to nab him. A team of crime branch officials from Surat has left for Delhi to take his custody,” Surat Commissioner of Police Ajay Tomar said.
Builder Raju Desai had lodged a complaint against Bhatt alleging the latter’s henchmen illegally occupied his under-construction building and land to extort Rs 25 crore from him.
Desai had alleged that one of the men threatened to shoot him with his gun.
Police had arrested four persons with country-made guns two days back.
In April 2018, Bhatt had claimed that nine policemen from Amreli district, including SP Jagdish Patel, had kidnapped him and forced him to transfer bitcoins – a digital currency – of Rs 9 crore into their digital wallet.
The CID-Crime had arrested nine policemen including Patel.
However, a twist in the case came when the CID-Crime’s probe revealed that Bhatt had himself extorted bitcoins of Rs 140 crore from two employees of a fraud digital currency platform at the beginning of 2018.
Meanwhile, Bhatt moved the Supreme Court anticipating his arrest.
The apex court had issued an order in his favour and directed the state CID not to take any coercive action against Bhatt till the next hearing, to be held on September 8, said a CID official.
