He was arrested at the airport. He was not assaulted. He was not extradited following a lengthy 6-month-long legal battle through the courts. On March 9th, Ayush Varshney, who is the CTO and co-founder of Darwin Labs was detained at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport by Immigration because of a<a href="https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/cbi-arrests-darwin-labs-co-founder-in-20-000-cr-gain-bitcoin-scam-case-126031100423_1.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>look-out notice issued by the CBI for his arrest. This is the culmination of ten years' worth of investigations into fraud against Ayush, ending with his detainment and removal from the board of directors of Darwin Labs.<h2>Darwin Labs Wasn't a Vendor. It Was the Product.</h2>Nobody stumbled into this arrangement. GainBitcoin was developed with Coin Bank Wallet, the BTC Payment Gateway,<a href="https://theprint.in/india/cbi-makes-first-arrest-in-rs-20000-cr-bitcoin-scam-accused-held-from-airport-before-sri-lanka-escape/2875617/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>GBMiners Bitcoin Mining Pool and used as a source for developing the investor website for GainBitcoin; therefore, without these components of infrastructure GainBitcoin would have no infrastructure able to provide services for their 8000 investors, no access point to deposit funds into the GainBitcoin system, and no user interface for their investors. In the case of the internal token known as MCAP created by Darwin Labs and implemented in an<a href="https://crypto-economy.com/gainbitcoin-crackdown-widens-with-arrest-of-darwin-labs-co-founder-in-india/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>ERC-20 token standard, there were individuals that are also co-founders of GainBitcoin; Sahil Baghla and Nikunj Jain. The MCAP token served as an escape for GainBitcoin investors when their payments ceased due to halted bitcoin payouts. When bitcoin payouts were interrupted, GainBitcoin covertly deposited investor payout to MCAP. Thus, no disclosure of reduced value to the investor occurred; there was a plan in place all along for the GainBitcoin management team. While there isn't an accusation against Jain at this time; Jain is listed as a cofounder of Vaomi AI at present. I hope this helps provide you with additional context about their current situation.<h2>The Scheme Was Not Complicated</h2>GainBitcoin launched in 2015. A 10% monthly return on Bitcoin was promised to investors for 18 months. GainBitcoin's profits were based on the number of people recruited rather than on mining performance. That's an annual 120% return. Many didn't put the figure to the test because the platform had a semblance of being a legitimate business with functional wallets and a mining pool interface. Based on Amit Bhardwaj, one of the company's founders, was sufficiently respected in the Indian Bitcoin community to be given the benefit of the doubt by investors. Bhardwaj died in 2022 while out on bail, and his brother, Ajay, continues to be named an accused party.<a href="https://www.freepressjournal.in/business/cbi-arrests-gainbitcoin-case-accused-ayush-varshney-in-multi-thousand-crore-cryptocurrency-scam" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>Estimates of the loss are between ₹6,606 crores and ₹20,000 crores; the wide range in those amounts primarily reflects the difficulty in tracing funds over the course of ten years rather than the poor quality of the accounting.<h2>The Case Didn't Move Until the Supreme Court Forced It</h2>FIRs were filed in West Bengal, Delhi, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir and other states. They are kept separate from one another, uncoordinated; there is no one creating a single image.In December 2023,<a href="https://www.prokerala.com/news/articles/a1738191.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>the Supreme Court intervened and ordered that the CBI act as a single investigative body for any matters which have any connection to each other; therefore, the investigation was centralized. It is likely that Varshney is still flying on commercial flights, without that order. In February 2025,<a href="https://www.hokanews.com/2026/03/20000-crore-bitcoin-scam-bombshell-cbi.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>approximately 60 searches were completed. After this time, no further activity occurred for 13 months; the lookout alert was triggered when Varshney travelled. It cannot be stated that an investigation has failed because there were 60 raids and only one arrest; the amount of time it takes to create a case which is sufficient to stand up to a trial with respect to the technical aspects of such a large scale scam is very lengthy in nature. Raj Kundra's name has also been referenced in the file, and the value of any property which is connected to him or his wife Shilpa Shetty is approximately<a href="https://www.cryptotimes.io/2026/03/11/cbi-cracks-down-on-gainbitcoin-in-india-arrests-cto-over-720m-scam/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>₹97.79 crore linked assets; he appeared in court in Mumbai and obtained bail in February 2026. Attachment of assets is still in place; his exposures in this respect will be based solely on the alleged routing of funds, not on direct scheme activity, and this distinction will be significant within the case at trial.<h2>What's Still Open</h2>The men mentioned are Jain and Baghla as well as they do not currently have an arrest warrant against them. Bitcoin is not completely traceable due to the fact it has been taken from numerous locations over many years, some has been converted to partially different forms and some of it has been moved around the world, with part of this being an issue to do with how far across the world this operation reached which resulted in the Supreme Court giving this to the CBI. While the recovery of cross border assets is still happening and continues to occur — the jurisdictional problem that existed preventing state prosecution of this case is not resolved but the CBI was the agency that took over and has been able to successfully obtain all of the required documents needed to prove their theory. Varshney's arrest as the<a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/india/maharashtra/cbi-arrests-darwin-labs-co-founder-ayush-varshney-in-gainbitcoin-cryptocurrency-scam-3927777" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> </a>first tech-side arrest is also important as in prior cases the arrests had only been of those who were operators and being promoters (those that promoted the scam). Now the inquiry is about the people who built the scam (those that developed the MCAP contract, those that developed the wallet features and those who developed the user experience for investors including allowing investors to be able to continue to log back into their accounts long after their money no longer moved/showed in an honest way).This is an alternative legal argument. It is going to be harder to protect. The founder died before going to trial. The co-founder was detained at an airport. The money is still out there. They haven't located any of it yet.

India arrests Darwin Labs co-founder Ayush Varshney in GainBitcoin scam probe; focus shifts to tech architects behind wallets, MCAP token, and investor infrastructure after 10-year investigation.

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