Indian authorities arrest suspects in GainBitcoin Ponzi scheme at Mumbai airport.

PANews reported on March 12 that, according to The Block, India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Ayush Varshney, co-founder and CTO of Darwin Labs, at Mumbai airport, accusing him of involvement in the multi-year GainBitcoin Ponzi scheme. The scam, operated by Variabletech Pte. Ltd., lured investors with promises of high returns on cryptocurrency investments. Darwin Labs is accused of developing and deploying the fraudulent technological infrastructure for the scheme, including the MCAP crypto token and ERC-20 smart contracts, and supporting the GBMiners.com Bitcoin mining platform, Bitcoin payment gateway, CoinE Bank Bitcoin wallet, and the GainBitcoin investor website.

According to local media reports, the scam misappropriated approximately 19 million rupees (about $2.1 million) and involved 29,000 mined Bitcoins, currently valued at over $2 billion. It began in 2015 and spread to several Indian states. Varshney was intercepted by immigration authorities and handed over to the CBI while attempting to leave the country, and was formally arrested on March 10. GainBitcoin founder Amit K. Bhardwaj and his associates were arrested in 2018.