Chandigarh Crypto Circus: A Wallet, A Faker, And A ₹37 Lakh Mirage

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Key Highlights

  • In Chandigarh’s bureaucratic theatre, a 29-year-old man from Rajasthan was nabbed in a ₹37.23 lakh crypto fraud scheme that had set its sights on a Sector 44 resident, like a magician begging for applause with a banknote instead of a rabbit.
  • Victim Narender Ahlawat, left with an empty wallet but a full ego, was enticed by a fake “TRD-NFT” show promising 2% daily returns through AI-driven crypto trading-a promise shinier than a new petticoat on a wedding night and just as empty.
  • With a helpful kazoo of investigators and Binance, the money traced to Jitendra Singh, a 29-year-old from Rajasthan who allegedly lent out his wallet to a Haryana-based scam operator, turning his device into a reluctant money mule.

India’s crusade against crypto tricksters has wandered, like a barber’s apron, into yet another city’s parlor of fraud. In Chandigarh, the Cyber Crime Police Station, those tireless scribes of misdeeds, arrested a man from Rajasthan whose Binance wallet served as the collection point for money siphoned from a city resident through a dreamily artificial “AI trading” pitch.

According to reports, the accused is Jitendra Singh, 29, seized on April 8 along with his cadre of mobiles, which, like obedient canaries, sang only the language of encryption and pauses between notifications.

How the scam unfolded in India

The complainant, Narender Ahlawat of Sector 44, Chandigarh, fancied himself a man of opulent profits but woke to the bitter truth of a ₹37.23 lakh loss, roughly $40,704, in a crypto trading racket that could convince a saint to part with his sandalwood rosary.

Last year, fraudsters appeared in the guise of a firm named “TRD-NFT,” whispering of 2% daily profits via artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency trading-a profit labyrinth that has become a familiar red flag in the country’s carnival of crypto frauds.

To dress the deception as legitimate, the operators issued fake certificates and doctored transaction screenshots, painting a picture of live trading activity that would fool even a careful cobbler. Convinced by the optics, Ahlawat transferred ₹37.23 lakh to a digital wallet provided by the group. The spectacle collapsed the moment withdrawals were attempted; the actors vanished like goblins at dawn, leaving only a screensaver of promises and silence.

The Binance trail and the arrest

The case wandered into the hands of Chandigarh’s Cyber Crime Police, who, ever the diligent librarians of misdeeds, teamed up with Binance to trace the stolen funds. The investigation revealed that the beneficiary of the fraudulent wallet was Jitendra Singh, a 29-year-old from Rajasthan. On April 8, police arrested him and seized his mobile phones, those tiny windows into a theater of crime.

During questioning, Singh allegedly admitted he joined the scheme after meeting a person from Haryana skilled in improvising scams. His role, per investigators, was to act as the gateway through which money flowed, using his Binance wallet as a mule’s stable-a familiar pattern in India’s ongoing saga of cyber mischief. The inquiry continues to unmask other players in this ragged troupe.

Recent India crypto fraud cases

The Chandigarh arrest sits atop a mounting pile of crypto-related busts across Indian cities in recent weeks. On April 10, Delhi Police’s Crime Branch arrested two accused in a ₹74 lakh online investment fraud, where funds were layered through mule accounts before being transmuted into crypto for foreign handlers.

Pune has been a particularly frenzied stage. In late March, the city reported twin ₹69 lakh scams on the same day: one involved a techie lured into a fake crypto trading app that displayed ₹80 lakh in phony profits before withdrawals were blocked, and another a 62-year-old woman coerced by a TRAI-linked “digital arrest” scam.

Earlier that month, Ahmedabad Police busted a ₹1.5 crore multi-state crypto scam and arrested six accused running a fake digital asset investment platform.

In March, Mangaluru Cyber Crime Police dismantled an ₹85 crore USDT laundering pipeline built on more than 70 mule bank accounts that funneled Indian cybercrime proceeds to operators in China. The CBI also pursued a ₹1.86 crore digital arrest case alongside a separate ₹350 crore crypto Ponzi scheme with coordinated searches across seven states and union territories.

Even CoinDCX, one of India’s premier crypto exchanges, was not spared: its co-founders were arrested by Thane Police in March over a brand impersonation fraud, prompting the exchange to announce a ₹100 crore Digital Suraksha Network.

Global context: Crypto fraud goes cross-border

The Chandigarh tale sits within a worldwide crescendo of crypto investment fraud. Just last week, the UK National Crime Agency concluded Operation Atlantic, freezing $12 million in crypto scam funds across a week-long cross-border operation with the US Secret Service, Ontario Provincial Police, and the Ontario Securities Commission. Investigators counted more than 20,000 victims globally, many lured by “approval phishing” schemes that try to coax wallet access as if inviting a banker to tea.

Meanwhile, Li Xiong, former chairman of the Cambodia-based Huione Group, faced arrest in China for allegedly running a $4 billion global money-laundering network with crypto as its backbone, a case tethered to the Prince Group. The US FBI’s latest report pegs 2025 crypto fraud losses at a staggering $11.36 billion, with investment scams still leading the chorus of complaints.

On India’s policy front, PRAHAAR, the anti-terror strategy released in February 2026, flags the growing misuse of crypto wallets by criminal networks. From April 1, 2026, updated Income Tax provisions allow authorities to access crypto wallets, emails, and social media during authorised searches. A brave new world, where even the ghosts of the ledger are summoned for inspection.

Whether any of these measures translate into real recoveries for victims like Ahlawat remains uncertain; the national cybercrime portal shows that only ₹60.52 crore of ₹36,448 crore in cumulative losses has ever been returned to complainants. A sobering line, like a clerk counting empty pockets.

For now, the Chandigarh arrest chips away at one rung of the mule ladder that holds India’s crypto fraud machinery together, even as the Haryana-based operator who allegedly recruited Jitendra Singh remains at large, scampering through the pages of the city’s memory like a mischievous ghost with a passport.

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2026-04-12 17:57