In an intriguing twist of events, a man faces prison time after crypto exchange platform Crypto.com erroneously refunded him $6.8 million instead of a mere $65. This odd incident began three years ago when Jatinder Singh attempted to deposit $65 into his Crypto.com account. However, due to a mismatch between accounts’ names, the exchange reversed his transaction but made a colossal error by refunding $4.42 million back to Singh’s partner’s account.
This isn’t a unique event in Crypto.com’s history. The cryptocurrency exchange previously sent a woman $10.5 million instead of her owed $100 and even mistakenly sent $400 million worth of Ethereum to a wrong address. Unfortunately for the company, they only discovered their mistake with Singh’s transaction after seven months during an internal audit, by which time the couple had embarked on a lavish spending spree.
Capitalizing on the fortune suddenly in their possession, Singh, together with his partner, Thevamanogari Manivel, quickly purchased two homes and two plots of land in Melbourne, Australia. They also generously gifted a friend a whopping $650,000. Adding to the drama, Singh had encouraged Manivel to withdraw the windfall, fearfully anticipating a possible transaction reversal, and falsely claimed they had won a raffle.
When the error finally dawned on Crypto.com, they appealed to the Commonwealth Bank to inform Manivel of the mistake and demanded a refund. Despite her suspicions of being entangled in a scam, she transferred $2.6 million to her bank account. The plot thickened when Manivel was arrested later as she attempted to board a one-way flight to Malaysia.
Singh has now confessed to the theft of $4.42 million in the Australian Victorian County Court, with his barrister maintaining that Singh did not fully comprehend the gravity of his actions. As Singh awaits his sentence, Manivel received a 209-day prison sentence that’s considered already served due to almost a year on remand. In addition, she was allocated an 18-month community corrections order last year, after pleading guilty to recklessly handling the proceeds of a crime.