Ayushi Jain Arrested For Theft of $480K In BTC From Co-Founded Exchange

A woman, Ayushi Jain, has recently been arrested in Bengaluru, India. This occurred on the 17th of March and pertained to allegations of stealing 63.5 Bitcoins (BTC), from a crypto exchange she had previously founded: Bitcipher Labs. The thefts themselves took place during the 11th of January 2020, and the 11th of March 2020, respectively. The total amount of money stolen from Bitcipher stands at around $480,000.

Stealing Directly From The Wallets

Jian, aged 26, was a former employee of Bitcipher and was found in possession of the stolen BTC, which she took from the company’s hardware wallets. The Indian authorities had responded to a complaint that Ashish Singhal, the CEO of Bitcipher Labs, had filed against her. Singhal himself had identified two unauthorized transactions on the wallets.

The Investigation Department of the Bengaluru police gave a public statement about the matter, explaining that investigations revealed that the plaintiff had several hardware wallets. These Bitcoin wallets were used to store BTC and were secured through a 24-word passphrase, which itself was written on a piece of paper.

A Careful Series Of Deductions

Through this, the police had concluded that the thief had to be someone who was proficient in the use of this technology, as well as someone closely associated with Bitcypher. This was due to the fact that this thief had to operate a crypto hardware wallet to access the funds. Furthermore, they did so through the relevant passphrase.

After a list was prepared consisting of the former employees of the exchange, it was quickly determined that Jain was a likely suspect. She quit the company back on the 16th of December, 2019, even though she co-founded the company with Singhal back in 2019.

Buckling Under Pressure

After detainment, Jain was quick to confess to the crime, with the funds themselves being quickly recovered. A senior police officer gave a statement about the matter. He explained that Ayushi was taken into custody on Wednesday, with her house being searched in the process.

The police managed to seize a laptop holding the transaction history, making it clear that Jain had stolen the money through two installments between January and March. She later confessed to the crimes, and the police managed to recover all the funding by Thursday afternoon. After the seizure, the police managed to return all the funds back to the exchange.