Sri Vijaya Puram : Mohammed Waseem, former Panchayat Secretary with the Andaman & Nicobar Administration, has been arrested in connection with a ₹160 crore cryptocurrency fraud that allegedly duped investors across borders through a network of fake tokens, shell firms, and digital marketing campaigns. The arrest was made by the Crime Investigation Department (CID) on Saturday. Waseem was produced in court on Monday and remanded to three days of police custody.
The case, originally filed by Netherlands-based Dutch Consultant Innovation Limited (DCI Capital), accuses Waseem and six others of orchestrating a large-scale scam. According to investigators, investor funds were funneled through misleading blockchain schemes, closed Telegram groups, and international accounts.
Waseem joined the Andaman & Nicobar Administration as a Panchayat Secretary in 2013, working across gram panchayats in South Andaman. He led multiple public sanitation initiatives.
According to Waseem’s statements in his LinkedIn profile, his exposure to Bitcoin dates back to his engineering college days in 2011. That early curiosity turned into conviction by 2016, when a newspaper article reportedly pushed him to explore blockchain technology more seriously. In 2019, Waseem registered Aza Enterprises Private Limited, the company now at the center of the complaint.
By January 2021, he formally launched Aza Ventures, positioning it as a pooled investment platform giving retail investors access to private sales in early-stage crypto projects. Waseem later left his government job and is said to have shifted base to Dubai, where he supposedly expanded the company’s global footprint. According to archived marketing materials, the firm claimed to have facilitated over $80 million in investments and backed more than 100 blockchain projects, including names like Celestia, Aptos, EGLD, and Beam.
Waseem has denied the allegations. His legal team insists the case is politically motivated, and that he is being framed for the actions of others in the crypto startup ecosystem. He has filed a counter-complaint naming Ravindra Kumar, the former CEO of blockchain firm Self Chain, as the actual mastermind behind the failed project. Authorities have appealed to victims to come forward and lodge formal complaints.
