Kerala businessman tortured to death by colleagues over Rs 450 cr Bitcoin scam

The deceased, Shakoor had collected an amount of Rs 450 crore for investing in cryptocurrency.

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On August 28, the Dehradun police in Uttarakhand received a call from a hospital, and the caller said that they found a body in a car at the parking lot. On combing through the car, the police found a hospital admission card, a diary and some documents, from which they identified the deceased to be Abdul Shakoor, a 35-year-old from Malappuram in Kerala. According to the hospital authorities, a group of four men brought Shakoor’s body in the car and abandoned it there.

The police also found several injury marks on Shakoor’s body, which indicated that he was tortured to death. On further investigation, the police learned that Shakur was tortured by his co-workers over a Rs 450 crore Bitcoin scam.

Five men, all hailing from Malappuram, have been arrested: Faris Mamnoon, Arvind C, Asif Ali, Sufail Mukhtar and Aftab Mohammad. The Dehradun police are searching for five more men who were part of Shakoor’s core team: Aashiq, Arshad, Yasin, Rehaab and Muneef.

Tortured over Shakoor’s Bitcoin scam

According to Dehradun Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Arun Mohan Joshi, Shakoor was running a Bitcoin business in Kerala. He had collected an amount of Rs 450 crore for investing in the cryptocurrency from people in various places, including Manjeri in Malappuram district. He created a network of teams to collect money from various investors. The business, however, failed.

Speaking to TNM, an officer at the Perinthalmanna police, under whose limits the area where Shakoor is from falls under, said that the victim was in financial trouble when his Bitcoin business failed and as a result, the investors came searching for him.

Shakoor left Kerala with his core team — Aashiq, Arshad, Rehaab and Muneef.

The Dehradun police, on interrogating the accused, found that Shakoor had told his close partner, Aashiq, that his Bitcoin account was hacked and that he was planning to start his own cryptocurrency to pay back the investors. However, Aashiq was convinced that Shakoor might have cryptocurrency worth crores of rupees and that if he could get the password to his account, the team could retrieve the amount.

And soon, Aashiq called his agents (the accused who have been nabbed) — Faris, Arvind, Asif, Sufail and Aftab — to hatch a plan to retrieve Shakoor’s password. On August 12, Aashiq took Shakoor to Dehradun and eventually rented a house on August 26. Aashiq was joined by other members involved in the case, and started torturing Shakoor to obtain the password.

“The accused tortured him so much to retrieve the password that Shakoor died. Because crores of money would be lost with his death, the men took him to a hospital, hoping for a miracle. However, since that hospital declared him dead, they took him to another hospital, where they received the same response. So, they abandoned the body in the car and fled the hospital,” Dehradun SSP Arun told the media.

How the accused were nabbed

Using the CCTV footage at the hospitals, the Dehradun police roughly identified the men who came in the car with Shakoor’s body. Various teams surveilled hotel dhabas, bus stands and railway station and even coordinated with the police of other states.

Using the footage, the police traced the men to a bus heading towards Saharanpur/Roorkee in Uttarakhand. Haridwar and Dehradun police followed the bus and stopped it. Based on the appearance of the men and their language, the police nabbed the five men.