How to report a cryptocurrency scam in India

If you have lost money to a crypto scam in India, do two things today: get the complaint into the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, and record the wallet addresses publicly.

The complaint puts the case in front of your state police and a hold request in front of the banks. The public record works immediately, and on the part of the trail the banks cannot reach.

The clock is the whole story. Rupees sitting in a mule account can still be stopped; the same money converted to USDT cannot.

Key takeaways

• Report on cybercrime.gov.in, the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal run by I4C under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Its FAQ lists "cryptocurrency crimes" as reportable.
• 1930 is a toll-free helpline that helps you lodge it and triggers hold requests to banks and wallets. It is not a police investigation and it is not an FIR.
• A portal complaint is not an FIR. Conversion is your state police's decision, and MHA's own numbers put it at roughly one complaint in thirty. Chase yours.
• Police is a State subject, so whichever state you pick on the portal is where the case goes.
• The I4C Suspect Repository checks a mobile number, email, bank account, social media handle or UPI ID against public complaints. It has no field for a wallet address.
• Neither the RBI, which has never licensed any entity to deal in virtual currency, nor SEBI's SCORES will recover your money.

What to do in the first hours

Stop sending money. Almost every victim makes one last transfer because a "withdrawal fee", a "TDS clearance" or an "account verification charge" stands between them and their profits. That money never comes back, and paying it only proves you will pay again.

Then, in this order:

1. Copy every destination address and transaction ID. They are in your exchange or wallet history. If the money left by UPI or IMPS first, copy the UTR numbers and beneficiary account too. This is the most important thing in the file.
2. Screenshot everything before it disappears. Full WhatsApp and Telegram threads, the profile that contacted you, the app, the dashboard showing your fake balance.
3. Call 1930, or file the financial fraud complaint on cybercrime.gov.in. Have your bank and the beneficiary details ready. This generates the hold request to the receiving banks and wallets.
4. Tell your bank, and the exchange you sent from. The bank acts on the hold; the exchange can flag the receiving address.
5. Go to the police station and get the FIR registered. Take printouts and a pen drive.

Where to report

National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal — cybercrime.gov.in

The front door, managed by MHA as part of I4C. Three intake routes — Women/Children Related Crime, Financial Fraud, Other Cyber Crime. A crypto investment scam goes under Financial Fraud.

Register with your name and an Indian mobile number, complete the OTP, and file. A reference number arrives by SMS and email. The portal hashes every file you upload, so your evidence can be shown intact later. Write it up in the government's own vocabulary — investment scam, fake social media advertisement, digital arrest — because almost every Indian crypto loss is one of those three.

1930 — the helpline that chases the money

1930 is the toll-free number MHA describes as operationalised "to get assistance in lodging online cyber complaints". Behind it sits the Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System, run from a centre at I4C where banks, payment aggregators, telecom operators and state police sit in one room. MHA puts more than ₹11,158 crore saved across more than 32.80 lakh complaints to 30 June 2026.

Understand what that machinery reaches: the rupee rails. Bank accounts, wallets, payment aggregators. Not a balance sitting at an address on Tron or Ethereum. If your money became USDT the same evening, the lien mechanism has nothing left to lien.

Not a reason to skip 1930. A reason not to stop there.

Your state police — the FIR

This is the step most people skip, and the one that matters six months later.

A complaint on the portal is a complaint. Its own FAQ says one "can be withdrawn before it is converted into FIR", and MHA says conversion "and subsequent action" belong to the state or UT police concerned.

How often does that conversion happen? Across financial years 2023-24 to 2025-26 MHA counted more than 53.8 lakh complaints on the portal and 1.81 lakh FIRs. Roughly one in thirty. That ratio is the argument for going in person.

So go, to your nearest police station or your district's cyber crime police station, with the reference number and your documents. Ask for the FIR to be registered and write down its number. This is prosecuted as cheating under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 — in force since 1 July 2024 — at section 318, or 319 for cheating by personation where someone posed as a police, CBI or customs officer.

Without an FIR number there is usually no investigating officer, no formal request to an exchange, and nothing for a claim to attach to.

Chakshu, on Sanchar Saathi

Report the number that called you to Chakshu, on the Department of Telecommunications' sancharsaathi.gov.in — "Investment, Stock Market and Trading" is one of its own categories, with 29,140 reports in 2025. But DoT is explicit that Chakshu covers fraud "attempted but not actually committed", that actual losses belong to I4C, and that it pools reports rather than acting on yours. A number comes off the network this way; a case does not open.

What documentation to gather

• Every destination wallet address you sent to
• The transaction ID (TXID) for each transfer, with date and time
• UTR numbers and beneficiary accounts for any rupee legs
• Uncropped screenshots of complete chat threads, not clipped highlights
• The exact URL of the platform, the app name and store link, the ad, the profile
• Bank and exchange statements, and every name, number, handle and email they used
• A written timeline: first contact, every payment, last contact

Check before you pay: the I4C Suspect Repository

On cybercrime.gov.in you can search a mobile number, email, bank account number, social media handle or UPI ID against identifiers named in public complaints. I4C says on the page that it is built from citizen complaints, not adjudicated findings — a signal, not proof, but the fastest free check there is.

Note what it does not index. There is no wallet address field — not in either of its two lookups, and not in the "Report Suspect to I4C" form, which takes website URLs, WhatsApp and Telegram handles, phone numbers, emails, SMS headers, social media URLs, deepfakes and apps. India's public index of scam identifiers stops at the UPI ID.

Three portals that will not help you

The RBI has said since 2017 that it "has not given any licence / authorisation to any entity / company to operate such schemes or deal with Bitcoin or any virtual currency". Crypto is not banned in India, and it is also not licensed — so "RBI approved" is a lie about something checkable.

SEBI's SCORES takes complaints against SEBI-regulated entities, and a fraudulent crypto platform is not one. Nor is FIU-IND: registration there is an anti-money-laundering obligation, not a licence, and it takes reports from banks, not victims.

The Grievance Appellate Committee (gac.gov.in) hears appeals against social media grievance officers, and says so itself: "GAC does not handle financial fraud or cybercrime cases."

Can I get my money back?

Sometimes. Far less often than the internet suggests, and MHA's own figures say so: across financial years 2023-24 to 2025-26, more than ₹56,087 crore was reported lost on the portal, ₹9,079 crore was lien-marked, and ₹206 crore was actually refunded. A lien is common. A refund is not.

It turns on one question: did the funds reach a service with real compliance obligations — a centralised exchange, a payment processor, a bank — before they dispersed? If yes, and an FIR exists, there is a route. Through mixers or bridges it narrows fast.

Where money was actually held, MHA has run a Money Restoration Module at mrm-ncrp.mha.gov.in since April 2026. A refund request opens with the 14-digit NCRP acknowledgement number from your complaint, an OTP, and the bank account and PAN to credit. That number is the second reason not to lose it.

One thing worth being clear about: the RBI rule giving you zero liability if you report within three working days covers unauthorised transactions — someone using your account without your consent. In an investment scam you authorised the transfer yourself, so it does not apply, however unfair that feels.

Beware of "fund recovery" offers

A few weeks after the loss, someone gets in touch offering to recover it. Sometimes as advocates, sometimes claiming contacts inside a cyber cell or I4C itself — cybercrime.gov.in carries a live notice that mails impersonating the CEO of I4C are circulating and the claim is fake. They want an advance fee, a "court fee", or remote access to your laptop.

It is the same network, or someone who bought the victim list. The signals never change:

• They contacted you, not the other way round
• Money is demanded before anything is done
• The outcome is guaranteed
• Insider contacts are claimed

No Indian government body asks you to pay in advance to get your money back.

Why record the address publicly

A criminal case moves at the speed of a criminal case. A public record works the moment you file it.

Record the address, the transaction ID and the platform on Chainabuse. It is free, open to anyone, and it groups reports against one address — so isolated complaints become a pattern instead of forty people each thinking they were unlucky. India's official index stops at the UPI ID. Somebody has to index the address.

Often the person who benefits is not the one who reported. It is the one who searches two weeks later and finds the warning.

FAQ

1. Where do I report a crypto scam in India?

File on the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal at cybercrime.gov.in under Financial Fraud, or call 1930 for help lodging it. Then go to your nearest police station or district cyber crime police station and get an FIR registered.

2. Is a cybercrime.gov.in complaint the same as an FIR?

No. The portal's FAQ notes a complaint can be withdrawn before it is converted into an FIR, and MHA says conversion belongs to the state or UT police. File the complaint, then follow up in person until you have an FIR number.

3. What does calling 1930 actually do?

It helps you lodge the complaint and feeds it into the Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System, which sends hold requests to the banks and wallets that received the money. That reaches funds still inside the banking system, not crypto already on-chain.

4. Do I need a lawyer to file the complaint?

No. Filing on cybercrime.gov.in, calling 1930 and getting an FIR registered are free, and you can do all three yourself.

5. Can the RBI or SEBI help me recover the money?

No. The RBI has never licensed any entity to deal in virtual currency, and SCORES only handles complaints against SEBI-regulated entities. Neither investigates your case or returns funds.

6. How long do I have to report?

Any time, but the window for holding funds is the first hours, while the money is still in a bank account. Report anyway if months have passed — the same address usually has dozens of victims.

7. Does reporting on Chainabuse replace the police complaint?

No, do both. The complaint and FIR open the criminal investigation in India. The Chainabuse report makes the address visible to exchanges and investigators outside Indian jurisdiction, where the money actually went.