District police have arrested a 36-year-old man from the Malappuram district of the south Indian state of Kerala on charges of operating a cryptocurrency scam.
Nishad has been charged under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act by the district police chief U Abdul Karim.
A team led by police inspector P Vishnu seized several documents from Nishad’s house and alleged that he has duped thousands of people from across India of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Nishad, who is also the managing director of a Bengaluru-based startup Long Rich Technologies, allegedly lured investors into investing in the cryptocurrency “Morris Coin.”
According to the police, the investors were promised a daily return of 270 rupees (~$3.60) for 300 days if they deposited a minimum amount of 15,000 rupees ($200) into Morris Coin.
The scheme suggested that the investors would be able to exchange Morris Coins after the 300-day lock-up period. Investors were reportedly promised added benefits for bringing more people to deposit funds into the scheme.
The police said that Morris Coin was not listed on any exchanges, making it impossible to exchange the coin. They also claimed that the company does not have any registered offices.
Even the Morris Coin ICO website has no information about team members or developers, nor does it give any insight into what the project is about. Nishad, however, claimed that Morris Coin was operating in compliance with the law.
The police plan to reach out to investors in Morris Coin to record statements and further investigate the case.
Cointelegraph tried reaching out to Long Rich Technologies and Morris Coin but received no immediate response.