Man given $10m in crypto bungle

Prosecutors have called for a cryptocurrency enthusiast to be jailed after he spent millions of dollars wrongly refunded by an online exchange.

Jatinder Singh’s court troubles began after he tried to deposit $100 in his Crypto.com account in May 2021 using his partner’s bank account.

But discrepancies between the names of the accounts led the international exchange to reject the deposit, followed by a “significant accounting mistake” by a Bulgarian employee.

Instead of refunding the $100 deposit, the staff member typed the account number of Singh’s partner, Thevamanogari Manivel, into the transfer document – resulting in a $10.47m refund.

The error wasn’t discovered until seven months later, when an internal Crypto.com audit discovered the missing money in December the same year.

Singh, 39, returned before the Victorian County Court on Friday for a presentence hearing after pleading guilty to the theft of $6.09m.

Previously, prosecutor Campbell Thomson said immediately after realising the mistake, Singh told Manivel to withdraw the money because he wanted to avoid the transaction being reversed.

He would later claim he honestly believed he’d won an online raffle.

Over the coming months the couple spent millions buying two homes and two blocks of land in Melbourne – even gifting a friend $1m.

When Crypto.com realised its mistake it contacted Commonwealth Bank, which passed on the message to Manivel the money would need to be returned.

She would later tell police she thought the call was a “scam” but transferred $4m to her Malaysian bank account.

She was arrested in March 2022 attempting to board a flight to Malaysia with a one-way ticket.

Singh’s barrister, Martin Kozlowski, told Judge Martine Marich that his client now accepted he did not believe the cash belonged to him.

Mr Kozlowski said at the time Singh did not properly understand the seriousness of his actions.

“It must be taken into account the funds here came from a multinational that didn’t even know the funds were gone until an audit sometime later,” he said.

“Nobody knows how they would respond if faced by the same situation.”

The defence barrister called for his client’s almost year-long time spent on remand to be taken into account and for Singh to be placed on a community corrections order going forward.

“He is very unlikely to be ever seen by the courts again,” Mr Kozlowski said.

But Mr Thompson argued this was “out of range” for the opportunistic offending, saying a jail sentence needed to be imposed.

“It may not be that you send him to jail for very long at all after taking into account his presentence detention,” he said.

The court was told Crypto.com had launched legal action to recover the money spent in Australia but had declined to share the outcome with prosecutors.

Mr Thompson said it was likely most had been recovered, but he understood the $4m in Malaysia had not been returned.

Judge Marich said it was clear Singh was no “criminal mastermind”.

“Each found themselves in an extraordinary situation,” she said.

“It was the proverbial bag of gold falling from the sky It’s a situation where many might ruminate about what they might do.”

She will sentence Singh later this month.

Manivel was sentenced to 209 days in prison, recognised as time already served, and placed on an 18-month community corrections order in September last year after pleading guilty to a charge of recklessly dealing with the proceeds of crime.