Indian Drug Enforcement Officer Caught Stealing Bitcoins

Satyendra Kumar Singh an investigator with the Ahmedabad division of India’s Narcotics Control Bureau has been accused of unfreezing bitcoin accounts that were frozen during a drug investigation in 2015. That 2015 investigation involved five men in their twenties who were operating a company called Provizer Pharma. Provizer sold drugs online to people all over the world. The State of Texas even tried to buy pentobarbital and sodium thiopental from Provizer for use in the state’s lethal injections. According to documents obtained under the Freedom Of Information Act, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice informed the DEA that the state would soon be importing a large quantity of lethal injection drugs from India.

“TDCJ [Texas Department of Criminal Justice] will be importing Thiopental Sodium in 1 gram vials for a total of 500 to 1,000 grams per purchase/importation,” a DEA agent noted in a report from January 8^th, 2015. The DEA agent went on to note in the report that the Indian drug supplier that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was importing from was Provizer Pharma. The shipment of lethal injection drugs to Texas would never arrive because Provizer Pharma had been raided by India’s Narcotics Control Bureau.

The men involved with Provizer were detained by the Narcotics Control Bureau in 2015 and held for nine months on charges that they violated India’s Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The five men were caught with packages of drugs at a FedEx in Surat, which led to authorities raiding Provizer’s offices which were located in a mall. There narcotics agents found hundreds of kilograms of benzodiazepines, stimulants, opioids, and other drugs.

During the investigation into Provizer, it was found that the company had controlled nine bitcoin accounts that held a total of 470 bitcoins, which were being held by a Bengaluru company at the time. Narcotics Control Bureau Investigator Singh froze Provizer’s nine bitcoin accounts in June of 2015. In December of 2015, the accused Provizer co-founder Dipak Mangukiya was released on bail. At the time Mangukiya tweeted, “Happiest day of my life:) thanks to Honourable Gujarat High Court….. Thanks you lord.”

“After the accused got bail from the Gujarat high court in 2016, the Narcotics Control Bureau sought a report on the status of the bitcoin accounts and learned that Singh had authorized the unfreezing of the accounts in July 2016 through a signed and stamped letter on an Narcotics Control Bureau letterhead. As no such authorization was given in the case, Singh came under the scanner and an internal inquiry was begun against him,” a law enforcement official told the Times of India. That internal inquiry revealed that Investigator Singh had worked with Dipak Mangukiya to unfreeze the bitcoin accounts. Mangukiya forged the signatures of the four other former partners in Provizer, and with Singh’s fraudulent letter on Narcotic Control Bureau letterhead, the two were able to get the account unfrozen and withdraw bitcoins from the account. Investigator Singh even called the Bengaluru company that was holding the bitcoin accounts to confirm the accounts could be unfrozen. The bitcoins were then transferred elsewhere, Singh kept half of the 470 bitcoins, and the other half allegedly went to Dipak Mangukiya.

After the internal inquiry was completed, Singh was suspended from the Narcotics Control Bureau and a formal criminal complaint was made against him. Both Satyendra Kumar Singh and Dipak Mangukiya have been arrested and will remain in custody until at least April 13^th. Indian law enforcement has been struggling to deal with technology such as cryptocurrencies and the darknet. Singh may be the first law enforcement officer in India to be caught stealing bitcoins. In the United States, law enforcement agents have been caught and convicted of extorting and stealing bitcoins, such as former DEA agent Carl Force and former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges.