Indian-origin Sikh on trial for $10.4mn crypto bungle in Melbourne
Darpan News Desk IANS, 11 Oct, 2022 04:49 PM
Sydney, Oct 11 (IANS) An Indian-origin Sikh and his partner, who received $10.4 million from a cryptocurrency company by mistake, will face trial in Australia over allegations that they spent the money on items including a $1.2 million house.
Jatinder Singh, 37, and his partner, Thevamanogari Manivel, 40, appeared by video link from prison in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday, where they were committed to stand trial over theft and other charges, the Canberra Times reported.
Crypto.com intended to refund Manivel $100 but she was erroneously transferred $10,474,143. The company noticed its mistake when an audit was conducted in December 2021.
A subsequent probe found that an employee in Bulgaria, who processed the refund in May 2021, had incorrectly entered $10.4 million into an Excel spreadsheet.
Even though that Crypto.com account was in Singh's name, the transfer was sent to Manivel's account as he used her bank card to buy cryptocurrency, the Melbourne Magistrates Court was told.
Singh allegedly thought he won the money after being sent a notification from the Crypto.com app about a competition. This was also what he told Manivel, a Malaysian national.
Investigations have since revealed that $4 million of the money was allegedly transferred to an offshore bank account with other amounts spent on items including a $1.2 million home in Craigieburn and three other properties, a car, art, furniture and gifts to friends in Melbourne of more than $1 million each, a report in The Age said.
Manivel, presently out on bail, was arrested at Melbourne Airport in March 2022 while allegedly trying to fly home to Malaysia on a one-way ticket with about $11,000 in cash.
The couple will face directions hearing in the County Court on November 8.
The militant group's metamorphosis from rag-tag guerrilla force to highly professional, impressively equipped army has been at the expense of Western taxpayers, the report said.
"Russia should be concerned about the rise of the Taliban. The country will become a terrorist hub that will endanger Central Asia and Russia itself," Fahim Dashty told The Moscow Times by phone from the Panjshir Valley, where his resistance group has gathered as the country's last holdout against the Taliban.
On Thursday evening, a suicide bombing rocked a gate of the airport where a crashing crowd was waiting for evacuation flights, and later another explosion hit the nearby Baron Camp, a former coalition base.
In his first comments on Kashmir, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid has said that Pakistan and India should sit together to resolve all their outstanding issues because both are neighbours and their interests are linked to each other.
The Haqqani network also established close ties with Pakistan's powerful yet notorious Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which provided it weapons, training, and financial support.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who hosted the summit, and France's Emmanuel Macron were among those calling for an extension in order to more fully evacuate all foreign nationals and vulnerable Afghans who helped the Americans and the NATO allies before the country's recent fall to the Taliban.
