A magistrate court in Thane, India, granted bail to CoinDCX co‑founders Sumit Surendra Gupta and Niraj Ashok Khandelwal, finding no prima facie case in a 71 lakh rupee (about $75,000) cheating complaint tied to a fake trading platform impersonating the exchange.
In a common order on March 23 on their bail applications, the court concluded that, on the available evidence, no case was made out against the founders. The pair had been questioned and remanded after a complainant alleged they had defrauded an investor.
The magistrate recorded that the investigating officer had “no objection” to their release and noted the applicants were not present in Mumbra when the alleged offence occurred. The order states another person, posing as an accused, cheated the informant—a fact the informant later admitted in court.
CoinDCX said the bail order supports a “third‑party impersonation” scenario, asserting the fraud took place on a lookalike site, coindcx.pro, which has no connection to the company. The judge also noted the informant filed an affidavit saying a separate accused, Rana, repaid the cheated amount and that the founders were not the persons he met at a café in Kausa Mumbra where the fraudulent deal was said to have been struck. With the matter “amicably settled” between the informant and the main accused, the court found no grounds to suspect the founders of tampering with evidence or witnesses.
Each founder was released on bail after executing a 50,000 rupee bond (roughly $530) on the condition they cooperate with the investigation and trial.
CoinDCX characterized the incident as part of a broader rise in impersonation and phishing scams targeting prominent financial and crypto brands in India, urging users to verify domains and interact only with the exchange’s official platform and social media profiles.
Founded in 2018 and based in Mumbai, CoinDCX is one of India’s largest crypto exchanges. The company reached an estimated valuation of about $2.45 billion after a funding round led by Coinbase Ventures in October 2025. The platform previously faced scrutiny following a July 2025 incident in which hackers drained roughly $44 million from an internal operational account; CoinDCX said no customer funds were affected.
