Written by Nirbhay ThakurNew Delhi | October 13, 2025 05:25 AM IST 3 min readA Delhi court on October 8 denied bail to a man accused of perpetuating a cyber fraud worth 2,000 crores involving the crypto platform WazirX.“The entire company has been financially crippled, and the offence has affected lakhs of investors, employees, and users of the platform…the quantum of the fraud is unprecedented in the history of cyber crimes in India ,” said Additional Sessions Judge Saurabh Partap Singh Laler of Patiala House Court in his order dated September 8.The accused, SK Masud Alam, “acted as a vital link in the chain of conspiracy” without whom the “entire fraud could not have been perpetrated”, the court said. “The accused facilitated the cyber criminals by providing them with the necessary tools (the crypto account) to execute the fraud,” ASJ Laler noted.Last year, WazirX, which is one of the country’s major cryptocurrency firms, suffered one of the biggest cyberattacks on an Indian exchange after hackers allegedly stole more than $230 million of users’ holdings, which was nearly half of the platform’s reserves.Shortly afterwards, an FIR was registered on August 5, 2024 on the complaint of Muthuswamy N Iyer filed on behalf of Zanmai Labs Pvt Ltd, the operator and license holder of the crypto platform. As per the complaint, multi-signature wallets of the platform were hacked by unknown cyber criminals, and approximately 234 Million USD (approximately Rs. 2,000 crores) worth of crypto tokens were fraudulently siphoned off on July 18.Alam was arrested on August 29 last year and six of his bail pleas had earlier been rejected. After questioning, he allegedly disclosed to the police that he came in contact with a buyer of crypto accounts through Telegram, who offered him money for obtaining WazirX accounts with credentials.Souvik Mondal, a labourer was identified by Alam and his account was opened on the platform. This account was then allegedly sold to M. Hasan through Telegram. Alam had, as per the police, provided the crypto account to foreign cyber criminals to execute the fraud.Story continues below this ad“This is not merely a case of simple cheating but involves an organized syndicate of cyber criminals operating across international borders who have employed highly sophisticated technical methods to breach the security infrastructure of a leading cryptocurrency exchange platform,” the court said.“During investigation, it was revealed that a WazirX account was opened in the name of one Souvik Mondal on 11.07.2024, just one week prior to the cyber-attack…this mobile number was found registered in the name of the present applicant/accused SK Masud Alam. The said account received crypto deposits worth INR 91,17,702 and was used by the hackers to drain the hot wallet of the complainant company,” it added.Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt LtdTags:WazirX