A adult female was arrested in Bengaluru, India on March 17 for allegedly stealing 63.5 Bitcoins (BTC) from Bitcipher Labs — a cryptocurrency commutation that she had previously co-founded.

The thefts took place on January xi and March 11 respectively, resulting in $480,000 worth of BTC beingness stolen from Bitcipher.

Bitcipher co-founder steals $480,000 in BTC

Ayushi Jain, the 26-yr-sometime former-employee, was found to have stolen 63.5 BTC from hardware wallets owned by the commutation.

Indian police acted in response to a complaint filed past Bitcipher Labs' CEO, Ashish Singhal, who had identified the two unauthorized transactions.

The Bengaluru Investigation Department stated that an "investigation revealed the complainant had hardware wallets in which Bitcoins were stored, and a 24-word passphrase (countersign) was written on a piece of paper."

Police suspected that the thief was "someone practiced in using this technology, and who was closely associated with the firm", due to the fact that the culprit was able to operate a cryptocurrency hardware wallet and access the funds using the wallet's respective passphrase.

Stolen funds were recovered

After preparing a listing of the exchange'south former employees, Ayushi was identified as a likely suspect, as she had quit the company on Dec. sixteen, 2022, despite having co-founded the house aslope Singhal in 2022.

After being detained, Ayushi confessed to the theft. The stolen funds were recovered by police force. A senior police force officer stated:

"On Wednesday, we took Ayushi into custody and searched her house. Nosotros seized a laptop which contained the history, showing how Ayushi used the passphrase and stole money in installments between January and March. She confessed to the crime. By Thursday afternoon, nosotros recovered the entire amount."

Police seized Ayushi'south laptop, and all stolen funds have been returned to the exchange.

Crypto Exchanges Blitz to Enter Indian Market

Bharat has become a renewed focus of the cryptocurrency community. Recently, the Supreme Courtroom reversed the Reserve Bank of Republic of india'due south ban on financial institutions, and are now providing services to businesses operating with cryptocurrencies.

Despite several cryptocurrencies rushing to enter the Indian marketplace, a recent parliamentary investigation has revealed that only two cryptocurrency exchanges are licensed with the land's Ministry of Corporate Affairs.