CoinDCX co-founder and CEO Sumit Gupta has announced a Rs 100-crore investment to build a Digital Suraksha Network (DSN), aimed at tackling the growing threat of cyber fraud in India. It is set to focus on creating shared safety infrastructure for fintech firms, crypto platforms, banks and other digital players. The announcement comes days after Gupta and other CoinDCX co-founder Neeraj Khandelwal were arrested in a case linked to a scam carried out by impersonators using a fake website.
Gupta explained on X the DSN will take a few years to be fully developed and will be designed as a collaborative effort across the digital ecosystem.
I want to address what happened to Neeraj and me last week. Of course, it was quite shocking to us as well and honestly very disheartening. But today, we want to talk about what actually happened and more importantly, what we’re going to do about it.
— Sumit Gupta (CoinDCX) (@smtgpt) March 30, 2026
On March 21, we were taken… pic.twitter.com/7uNEu0T3H3
AI helpline and fraud intelligence tools in the pipeline
As part of the initiative, CoinDCX is building a 24×7 WhatsApp-based AI chatbot that will help users verify links, platforms and transactions in real time. The network will also include an open API for fraud intelligence, allowing companies to share and access data on fraudulent websites impersonating their brands.
Gupta noted that many companies already track such threats internally, adding that CoinDCX itself has previously taken down over 1,200 fake websites. The aim is to make this intelligence widely accessible to prevent scams before they occur.
Training law enforcement and expanding awareness
The fund will also support training programmes for state cybercrime cells in areas such as blockchain forensics and digital asset tracing. In addition, CoinDCX plans to launch a nationwide initiative to improve digital financial literacy and safety awareness.
“Cyber crime is happening at a massive scale. Every year, Indians lose Rs 25,000 crores in such digital scams. Roughly about 30 lakhs complaints are filed each year, and these complaints have been increasing in the last four-five years,” Gupta said.
Background of the case
The announcement follows an FIR filed earlier this month at Mumbra police station in Thane, where a 42-year-old insurance consultant alleged he lost over Rs 71 lakh in a crypto-related scam. The fraud was later linked to a fake website which impersonated the CoinDCX brand.
Gupta said the company had no connection to the website or the transactions involved and that no funds moved through its platform. He added that a Thane court granted bail to the founders, noting that prima facie no case was made out against them.
“On March 21, we were taken into police custody in connection with a fraud complaint. Three days later, on March 24, a Thane court granted us bail, finding that prima facie, no case was made out against us. The fraud at the centre of this complaint was carried out through a fake website…by impersonators who have absolutely no connection to our platform, our systems, or CoinDCX. No money moved through CoinDCX. No transaction occurred on our exchange. The complainant himself confirmed in court that he did not know us and had never met us,” the X post read.
Gupta said the experience exposed gaps in the system’s ability to distinguish between legitimate businesses and bad actors exploiting their identity.
“I’ll be honest: our experience was deeply unsettling. Not because we doubted the facts — we knew from the first moment that this had nothing to do with us. But because it made something painfully clear: the ecosystem we operate in doesn’t yet have the tools to tell the difference between the people building this industry responsibly and the people exploiting it.”
He further added, “Think about what this precedent means: if a scammer uses your brand, your name, your face in a fake website and defrauds someone, you can be arrested. Not the scammer. You. This Could Happen to Any founder, Any Business.”