Good morning,
Over Rs 600 crore, siphoned off from 3,000 victims, was laundered through at least 27 cryptocurrency exchanges. As part of The Coin Laundry, a global investigation project, The Indian Express examined the records of MHA’s Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), to uncover a new financial laundering model – the most sophisticated one yet to emerge from India’s cybercrime ecosystem. Read our findings in detail.
The Coin Laundry is a project of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), comprising 113 reporters across 38 newsrooms, which has spotlighted how cryptocurrency exchanges have emerged as new pathways for illicit money to cross borders. In case you missed Part 1 of our investigation, read here.
Also read: Ritu Sarin details some of the mega crypto scams allegedly involving Indian operators that were busted by agencies in India and the US. These include: the case of Banmeet Singh, who surrendered $150 million — “the largest single crypto currency financial seizure” in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration; Chirag Tomar who stole $37 million from crypto wallets of 542 victims; Satish Kumbhani, who was behind the US Department of Justice’s “largest crypto currency fraud ever charged”; and more.
On that note, let’s get to the rest of the edition👇
🚨Big Story
Hailed as a “historic first”, the Indian public sector refiners have inked a one-year deal for American liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) imports. This comes as India pushes to move households from traditional fuels to cleaner LPG, while also widening its energy sources to secure better prices.
Zoom in: Crucially, the deal also forms part of India’s efforts to reduce the trade surplus with the US, which has earned the Trump administration’s ire. Sources in the Indian government indicate that India could step up energy imports from the US to help finalise a trade agreement. Already, the 50 per cent tariff (including the 25 per cent penalty) has made Indian goods uncompetitive in the US market. In October, India’s goods exports to the US fell nine per cent year-on-year, with a marked decrease in labour-intensive sectors.
Zoom out: Uncertainty prevails over the Trump tariffs, with the US Supreme Court hearing a case against the legality of the President’s policy. The court’s decision would define the limits of presidential power in the US. At the heart of the case lies a test for the court’s “major questions doctrine”. Vineet Bhalla explains.
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🎧For more on the LPG deal, tune in to today’s ‘3 Things’ podcast episode.
⚡Only in Express
Free the mind: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, delivering the Sixth Ramnath Goenka Lecture, urged a national commitment to “lock out” the Western mindset that he said has shaped India since Thomas Macaulay’s 1835 project to dismantle indigenous knowledge systems and impose colonial education. He set up a 10-year deadline, leading up to the 200th anniversary of Macaulay’s campaign, to reverse that legacy. Read on.
📰 From the Front Page
The verdict: Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, convicted of “crimes against humanity”, has been sentenced to death by a special tribunal. The charges against Hasina and two co-accused emerged out of the violent protests that rocked Bangladesh last year, leaving 1,400 people dead, and ending Hasina’s 15-year-long rule. Hasina has rejected the charges and called the tribunal “rigged”. What happens next? Hasina has been living in exile in India, and will likely remain here unless New Delhi agrees to Dhaka’s extradition request. Read.
Express View: Hasina death sentence is a travesty of justice
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📌 Must Read
Solo run: The Congress has decided to fight alone in the upcoming high-stakes Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections. At the heart of the rising differences within the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) camp is Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray’s growing closeness with his once-estranged cousin Raj Thackeray. Will this hand the BJP an advantage ahead of the state’s local body polls? Shubhangi Khapre decodes.
150 km in 7 hours: Scanning hours of footage from more than 1,000 CCTV cameras, the Delhi Police pieced together the i20’s entire journey, from the day it was purchased to its final moments, when it exploded near the Red Fort on November 10. From lying low in Nuh during J&K Police raids to the maze of detours he took on the last day, we chart Umar Nabi’s movements, the man behind the wheel.
⏳ And Finally…
Should the school curriculum include artificial intelligence (AI)? Students as young as those in Class III would soon be learning all about AI as part of the Ministry of Education’s bid to prepare India’s future workforce for a “technology-driven economy”. R Ramanujam, a professor at Azim Premji University, asks: Why this rush? “AI is both seductive and addictive. We need to be responsible while placing it in the hands of small children.” Read on.
On that note, what happens when AI meets Mahabharata? Well, Jatin Varma, founder of Comic Con India and a contributing writer at Fresh Take, watched JioStar’s Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh to find out. His take? “The problem is not that AI was used. The problem is that the taste wasn’t.”
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That’s all for today, folks! Until tomorrow,
Sonal Gupta
