Police in India training to detect crypto scams

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They say that to catch a crook you have to be able to think like one. That’s a piece of advice that the Ministry of Home Affairs in India is putting into practice, as they will be providing an all expense paid training for police officers to be able to detect cryptocurrency related crimes, according to a recent government filing.

The two-day training will be referred to as “Investigation of Cases Involving Crypto Currencies,” and will cover a number of key areas related to cryptocurrencies. This will not only include several hours of education, but also an introduction to such technologies as the blockchain. It will also provide legal training related to cryptocurrencies and discuss the major and most common types of crypto-related crimes.

The program is not mandatory for police officers. The hope is that by providing this training that more officers will be able to spot these types of crimes, such as fraud, theft, and distortion.

The training comes at a time when powerful entities within the country are looking to ban the use of cryptocurrency altogether. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has attempted to block any banks from working with crypto entities and has even attempted to get legislative officials to ban exchanges and other crypto related services. They have even gone as far as to declare a prohibition on banks looking to establish relationships with crypto companies, a situation that has sent the entire matter to the Supreme Court for arbitration.

Feeding the concerns about cryptocurrency are a number of recent high profile police cases involving the digital currencies. At the end of May, the police arrested six suspects involved in a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme that stole more than $950,000 from investors. On July 8, four suspects were arrested who were involved in the KBC cryptocurrency scam, another pyramid scheme.

It appears that the training is an attempt to try to quell some of these concerns. With these kinds of crypto crimes on the rise within India, there is a need to take some kind of action to try to detect and stop them from occurring. Involving a well-trained police department should definitely be a step forward to try to quell this activity.

The course, offered to police officers across a wide range of law enforcement agencies in September, including those who report to the Inspector General of Police, Directors for the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Intelligence Bureau, and the Narcotics Bureau. In addition, many chief executives will also receive the documentation for the training.