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India’s digital finance ecosystem is growing at an unprecedented pace. With that growth, however, comes an equally rapid rise in sophisticated online fraud. The recent ordeal faced by CoinDCX co-founders Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal has cast a harsh spotlight on a dangerous and largely unaddressed vulnerability — the ease with which bad actors can impersonate legitimate financial platforms to defraud unsuspecting citizens.
The Incident That Sparked a Movement
On March 16, 2026, a 42-year-old insurance advisor, Ashish Brijkishor Singh, filed a complaint at the Mumbra Police Station in Thane, alleging losses of Rs 71.6 lakh after scammers promised monthly crypto returns of 10 to 12 percent. The fraud had been orchestrated entirely through a counterfeit website — coindcx.pro — with no affiliation to the actual exchange. Thane Police travelled to Bengaluru and took both founders into police custody on March 20, without prior notice or investigation.
Gupta described the experience in stark terms: “It was highly disturbing. I was shocked and disheartened by what happened last week, because of some fake website called CoinDCX Pro. Today, anyone can create a fake website. Impersonators who used our name, created a Telegram channel, some social media accounts too, to do the fraud.”
A Thane court granted the co-founders bail on March 24, finding that prima facie, no case was made out against them. Gupta was unequivocal about the facts: “No money moved through CoinDCX. No transaction occurred on our exchange.”
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A Rs 100 Crore Commitment to Change
Rather than treating this as a closed chapter, Gupta responded with decisive action. Reflecting on the experience, he stated: “Our experience was deeply unsettling. Not because we doubted the facts, but because it revealed something painfully clear: the ecosystem we operate in still lacks the tools to distinguish between those building responsibly and those exploiting it.”
He further highlighted the dangerous precedent the case sets: “If a scammer uses your brand, name, or face on a fake website and defrauds someone, you could be arrested. Not the scammer. You. This could happen to any founder, any business. That has to change.”
In response, CoinDCX announced the Digital Suraksha Network (DSN) — a Rs 100 crore commitment to build cyber safety infrastructure for India’s entire digital finance ecosystem. On the fraud intelligence front, Gupta was direct: “We have already documented 1,200+ fraudulent websites impersonating CoinDCX. That data sat inside our systems. Not anymore. We are building an open API to share this intelligence in real time and inviting every exchange, fintech, bank, and digital lender to contribute.”
A Call for Collective Responsibility
The DSN’s offerings include a 24×7 WhatsApp based AI helpline free for all citizens, open APIs for real-time fraud intelligence sharing, and specialised training for state cybercrime cells in blockchain forensics. The platform will also commission independent research on the scale of digital fraud, fund a multi-stakeholder working group to draft recommended standards, and publish quarterly State of Digital Trust reports with transparent data.
Gupta closed with a direct appeal to the broader ecosystem: “I am asking every platform, every regulator, and every Indian who participates in digital finance to join us.”
The CoinDCX incident is a stark reminder that in a rapidly digitising economy, the absence of robust cyber safety frameworks does not merely inconvenience users — it can criminalise the innocent. The Digital Suraksha Network represents a meaningful step toward ensuring that India’s digital future is built on a foundation of trust, transparency, and collective vigilance.
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