The kingpin of a bitcoin scam worth Rs 485 crore ($67 million) has been tortured to death by five of his associates in Dehradun, India, a senior police official said on Saturday.
The attackers were beating Abdul Shakoor till he fell unconscious and left the body at the emergency ward of a private hospital here on Thursday night before fleeing.
Shakoor’s conflict with his associates began when he escaped to Dehradun as people who had invested in bitcoins through his team members started chasing them for their money.
To avoid split the profit, Shakoor told his partners that his bitcoin account had been hacked. But his associates hatched a plan to retrieve the password of his account.
They were torturing the kingpin as they believed he still had hundreds of crores in his account. The torture continued, ultimately leading to Shakoor’s death.
“His killers took him to two hospitals in the city as he fell unconscious but when doctors at both facilities declared him dead, they fled leaving his body behind,” Police officer Arun Joshi said.
The five were arrested on Friday. The accused are being interrogated even as the search for five others is on.
