The anti-corruption court in India has announced verdicts in a high-profile case related to the kidnapping and extortion of cryptocurrency from an entrepreneur in the city of Surat. Life imprisonment was handed down to 14 individuals, including former MP Nalin Kotadia and former police chief of Amreli district Jagdish Patel. The verdicts were announced on August 29, 2025.
This is reported by Business • Media
Details of the crime: kidnapping and torture of the entrepreneur
The victim in the case was investor Shailesh Bhatt, who in 2018 managed to partially recover his investments lost due to the cryptocurrency pyramid BitConnect. This information came to the attention of Kotadia and senior police officers in Amreli, who jointly organized the crime with the aim of seizing over 750 BTC.
On February 11, 2018, Bhatt was kidnapped and taken to a remote farm near the city of Gandhinagar. The operation was led by Amreli’s criminal investigation department inspector Anant Patel along with several police officers. The victim was brutally beaten and forced to confess to possessing 752 BTC, of which 176 belonged to his colleague, while the rest had already been sold for about 5 million USD.
The entrepreneur was granted freedom only after agreeing to hand over part of the cryptocurrency and 3.6 million USD in cash. When the agreement could not be fulfilled, the accused forced him to sell another 34 BTC and demanded an additional 150,000 USD.
“Bhatt’s complaint to the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs led to a large-scale investigation, the arrest of 15 individuals, and the involvement of 173 witnesses.”
Court ruling and government response
All 11 police officers were found guilty not only of kidnapping and assault but also of violating anti-corruption legislation through abuse of power. In addition to life imprisonment, the court ordered the confiscation of gold jewelry seized from Patel, which will be handed over to the Mumbai mint. Local authorities emphasized that such a ruling demonstrates India’s tough stance on combating cryptocurrency crimes.
Earlier, it was reported that in South Korea, law enforcement detained international hackers for a massive theft of over 28 million USD in cryptocurrency.