A Bengaluru court has allowed a requisition filed by a new special investigation team to take over the investigation in a Bitcoin scam dating back to the BJP government’s tenure in Karnataka.
“Requisition is allowed and permitted to proceed for further investigation u/sec. 178(3) of CrPC,” the local court said Monday.
A deputy superintendent of police of the SIT constituted at the instance of the Congress government filed the requisition last week. The requisition was taken on record by the court on July 7 along with the order of an additional director-general of police of CID (economic offences), a Karnataka High Court order indicating the existence of no restrictions in the case and a government order for an SIT inquiry into the scam.
The application was filed after the high court indicated on July 7 that there were no restrictions on investigations in cases filed by the Bengaluru police and the CID against a hacker, Srikrishna Ramesh alias Sriki (29), and his associates accused of hacking into Bitcoin exchanges and a state e-governance cell. The high court was hearing petitions filed by Srikrishna and three associates for quashing the investigations in the hacking cases against them.
The high court said that “there was no interim order granted at any point of time in the said petition. Therefore, indication that the interim order granted earlier is extended till the next date of hearing in the order dated 27.09.2022 stands deleted and the indication that the interim order continued, if any, in any of these cases subsequent to the said order also stands deleted”.
In one of the cases, Srikrishna is accused of hacking crypto exchanges and online poker sites to make illegal wealth for himself and his associates. In a second case, he is accused of hacking into the Karnataka government’s e-procurement cell to steal Rs 11.5 crore of funds, which was later converted into cash through an elaborate laundering network involving hawala transactions.
Police ordered the creation of the SIT on June 30.
“Earlier when the BJP was in power, a Bitcoin scam running into lakhs of rupees is reported to have occurred through virtual transfers with several people involved in the transactions, and the issue was hushed up without proper investigations,” Home Minister G Parameshwara said while announcing further investigations in the hacking cases. “Before we came to power we had stated that we would conduct further investigations into the Bitcoin scam. We have done as stated. An SIT is being formed in the CID…”
In November 2020, the Central Crime Branch of the Bengaluru police stumbled on the suspected possession of a large quantity of Bitcoins by Srikrishna following his arrest for allegedly procuring drugs over the darknet using crypto currency.
The hacker, who was a central figure in a 2019 pub brawl involving a Congress leader’s son, claimed to have hacked into multiple exchanges for Bitcoin. The investigation in the drug case led to the CCB booking the hacker and his high-profile associates for allegedly hacking into online poker sites and crypto currency exchanges.
The investigations were, however, hit by allegations of corruption and diversion of crypto currency found in the possession of the hacker gang.
The CCB investigation initially claimed to have recovered 31 Bitcoins worth Rs 9 crore from the hacker, but the police later claimed to have been duped by the hacker into believing that crypto currency located at an exchanges was transferred to an online seizure wallet created by the police to hold the Bitcoins recovered from the hacker.
The arrest of the hacker in November 2020 in the drug case also revealed his role in a July 2019 hacking of the state e-procurement cell, where Rs 11.5 crore was stolen. The inquiry in 2020 revealed that a gang featuring Srikrishna was behind the e-procurement cell hack in 2019.
The CID filed a chargesheet on December 15, 2021, against Srikrishna and 17 others for the 2019 heist at the state e-governance cell. The charges included theft, receiving of stolen property, disposal of stolen property, causing disappearance of evidence, destruction of evidence and criminal acts.
The CCB filed a chargesheet on February 2, 2021, following investigations into the alleged hacking of multiple exchanges and poker sites. The ED, which investigated the money laundering angle in the hacking case, filed a chargesheet with respect to the Rs 11.5 crore e-procurement cell theft on July 3 even as the state created an SIT.
While Rs 1.43 crore of the Rs 11.5 crore stolen from the e-procurement cell has been recovered by the ED, there has been no other major recovery of stolen funds or crypto currency by police so far.
Credit: Source link
