Thirty one people from Solapur city in Maharashtra have allegedly been cheated of Rs 45 lakh after they made investments through a crypto cloud mining app, police said citing complaints.

Cloud mining is a mechanism to mine a cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin, using rented cloud computing power and without having to install and directly run the hardware and related software.

"The investors were asked to download the CCH Cloud Miner App and the crypto trading app. They were asked to convert their Indian currency into dollars using the crypto trading app and were made to invest in the CCH Cloud Miner App," a police official said on Tuesday.

So far, 31 people have approached the police with complaints of cheating, he said, adding that some of the investors received returns initially.

"We have registered a case against three persons who had lured people to download the app and invest money under the pretext of offering hefty returns," police inspector Udaysinh Patil said.

The trio is in the jewellery business in Solapur, he said.

One of the complainants, Ram Jadhav, claimed he had invested Rs 4.28 lakh. He said the app is now defunct and the office of the trio is shut.

The Reserve Bank of India has time and again pointed out the problem with digital assets.