The Thane police last week arrested cryptocurrency exchange platform CoinDCX’s two co-founders Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal in connection with an alleged ₹71.6 lakh fraud case. On 24 March, the duo was granted bail by the Thane district court, which held that prima facie no case was made against them.
Their legal team had argued that they were victims of a “mistaken identity” and fraudulent impersonation. Magistrate Nilesh Rathod also ordered Gupta and Khandelwal to furnish ₹50,000 surety each and asked them to cooperate with the investigation.
According to the police, investigation is ongoing and all efforts are on to nab the four other accused.
Now, in a direct post about the turn of events, co-founder Sumit Gupta took to social media to address the fraud, the arrest, what happened and what the company plans next amid the scam and controversy.
‘Shocking and honestly very disheartening’
In a lengthy post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Gupta wrote that he wanted to “address what happened to Neeraj and me last week”.
“Of course, it was quite shocking to us as well and honestly very disheartening. But today, we want to talk about what actually happened and more importantly, what we’re going to do about it,” he added.
Explaining the chain of events, Gupta said that they were taken into police custody on 21 March, in connection to a fraud complaint and produced before the court three days later. “On March 24, a Thane court granted us bail, finding that prima facie, no case was made out against us,” he added.
Gupta further claimed that the fraud was carried out by impersonators through a fake website — “http://coindcx.pro” and had “absolutely no connection to our platform, our systems, or CoinDCX”.
“No money moved through CoinDCX. No transaction occurred on our exchange. The complainant himself confirmed in court that he did not know us and had never met us. I’ll be honest: our experience was deeply unsettling. Not because we doubted the facts — we knew from the first moment that this had nothing to do with us. But because it made something painfully clear: the ecosystem we operate in doesn’t yet have the tools to tell the difference between the people building this industry responsibly and the people exploiting it,” he stated.
CoinDCX plans to ‘lead change’, says founder
Gupta added that this method of fraud through impersonation threatens brands, names and faces of innocent parties and could happen to anyone. Adding that CoinDCX will lead the change, Gupta announced Digital Suraksha Network (D.S.N.) — a ₹100 crore commitment from the company, which aims to “build the cyber safety infrastructure that India’s digital finance ecosystem needs but does not yet have”.
“This is not a crypto problem. This is a problem across any company which has a digital footprint,” he added.
What is CoinDCX’s plan?
- Building a 24×7 WhatsApp helpline: Free for everyone, not just CoinDCX users, to verify links, platforms, and offers before you transact.
- Open Fraud Intelligence API: “We have already documented 1,200+ fraudulent websites impersonating CoinDCX. That data sat inside our systems. Not anymore,” Gupta said. He added that the company is building an open API to share this intelligence in real time and inviting every exchange, fintech, bank, and digital lender to contribute as a “shared immune system for India’s digital finance ecosystem”.
- Cyber Safety Infrastructure for Law Enforcement: The Digital Suraksha Network will fund training programmes for state cybercrime cells on blockchain forensics and digital asset tracing.
- “Caution Before Transaction”: a nationwide initiative to give every Indian the tools to participate in digital finance safely.
“We know that no single company can solve this. Fraud networks are sophisticated, cross-border, and evolving daily. Nowadays, they make use of AI that makes them exponentially harder to catch. But someone has to start to fix this problem from the root. We are putting ₹100 crore on the table because the ecosystem cannot afford to wait. I am asking every platform, every regulator, and every Indian who participates in digital finance to join us. We want to ensure that anyone building startups in India like us can do so with confidence, and not with fear,” Gupta added.
What is the case against CoinDCX and its founders?
Gupta and Khandelwal were arrested based on an FIR registered on 16 March at the Mumbra police station. Official said the complaint also named four others on charges of cheating, criminal breach of trust and fraud, as per a PTI report.
The complainant, a 42-year-old insurance advisor from Mumbra, alleged he was defrauded of ₹71.6 lakh between August 2025 and March 2026 after being lured by promises of high returns by investing in a firm, purportedly associated with the cryptocurrency platform. The complainant transferred ₹71,60,015 through cash and online transactions at different times but did not receive any returns and the funds were allegedly misappropriated, as per police.
(With inputs from PTI)