The Karnataka authorities has accorded sanction to the police to research corruption prices in opposition to 4 former Bengaluru Central Crime Department (CCB) officers accused of tampering with proof collected from a global hacker, Srikrishna Ramesh alias Sriki, after his arrest in 2020, based on police sources.
A Particular Investigation Crew (SIT) of the Karnataka Police’s Legal Investigation Division is investigating a Bitcoin rip-off linked to Sriki. The SIT was accorded sanction underneath Part 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, the sources added.
The SIT arrested the 4 cops – Sridhar Pujar, at present a deputy superintendent of police, and police inspectors Prashanth Babu, Chandradhar S R and Lakshmikanthaiah – in 2024.
Whereas the SIT has gathered proof of alleged police tampering with gadgets seized from Sriki and his affiliate, Robin Khandelwal, through the use of the providers of personal cyber consultants, it’s also trying on the corruption concerned within the case, police sources mentioned.
“There was a switch of Bitcoin from one of many accused to a technical skilled. There’s additionally the query of the declare of disappearance of cryptocurrency held by the hacker after he was arrested and brought to police custody (in 2020). These are being investigated as acts of corruption by the police officers,” a police supply mentioned.
The SIT would require further sanctions underneath Part 19 of the Prevention of Corruption Act to file a chargesheet in opposition to the officers in addition to underneath the Karnataka Police Act and Part 197 of the Legal Process Code when investigations are accomplished, police sources mentioned.
The SIT probe has discovered {that a} cyber skilled roped into help investigations by the Bengaluru Central Crime Department (CCB) police into the unlawful actions of Sriki in 2020 illegally accessed the crypto pockets of an accountant of the hacker and transferred Bitcoin valued at Rs 1.83 lakh to his personal crypto pockets.
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The SIT named 5 individuals – cyber skilled Ok S Santhosh Kumar who runs a personal agency known as Group Cyber ID Know-how Pvt Ltd in Bengaluru and former CCB officers Poojar, Babu, Chandradhar and Lakshmikanthaiah – within the FIR alleging unlawful confinement, breach of belief by a public servant and destruction of proof filed within the Cyber Crime police station of the CID on January 24, 2024.
The investigations within the case have revealed dozens of procedural lapses by the police, together with unlawful detention, lack of documentation of the logins, passwords and knowledge for laptop utilization by the accused, and even the supply of a laptop computer value Rs 60,000 by the police to Sriki to facilitate hacking.
In statements to the police which might be documented in earlier chargesheets filed by the CCB, Sriki claimed to have had 400 to 500 Bitcoins in his possession when he was arrested in 2020. The CCB police by no means recovered any of the Bitcoin allegedly acquired by means of unlawful hacking by the hacker.
On January 5, 2021, on the directions of Babu, cyber skilled Kumar is alleged to have gained entry to crypto wallets, e mail accounts, and financial institution accounts of Sriki and Khandelwal and adjusted the logins and passwords within the absence of witnesses or courtroom orders, the SIT has alleged.
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The SIT has additional acknowledged in its FIR that Babu offered a laptop computer value Rs 60,000 to Sriki, with which the hacker was allegedly allowed to entry his Amazon Internet Server account on the cloud, however no knowledge accessed was collected for proof by the officers.
The cops who had been part of the Central Crime Department unit of the Bengaluru police within the 2020-21 interval are additionally accused in a separate FIR from September 2023 of tampering with proof within the type of two laptops that had been seized from Sriki after his arrest in November 2020 by a CCB crew led by Pujar.
The SIT has but to hunt sanction underneath the Prevention of Corruption Act to probe the alleged corruption within the 2023 case.
The SIT referred to voluntary statements of Sriki and two technical consultants who had been witnesses to recommend that CCB cops facilitated the unlawful accessing of crypto wallets containing crypto forex to the tune of Rs 850 crore belonging to the hacker.
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Citing a Centre for Growth of Superior Computing (CDAC) forensic report for the laptops seized from the hacker and statements of witnesses, the SIT has alleged that as many as 4,000 Bitcoin valued at Rs 850 crore in 2020 was in all probability accessed illegally by cops after Sriki’s arrest.
The CDAC report dated January 23, 2024, has acknowledged that one of many laptops seized from Sriki on November 17, 2020, was used to entry crypto wallets at cryptocurrency web sites and for accessing on-line gaming platforms whereas it was in police custody.
The CID SIT was constituted by the Congress authorities in June 2023 to probe the alleged Bitcoin rip-off from the tenure of the BJP authorities (2019-2023), the place cryptocurrency value crores, allegedly stolen by the hacker from worldwide exchanges and gaming websites, was siphoned away after the hacker’s arrest in 2020.
Sriki is accused of a number of hacking crimes in India, together with the extortion of gaming websites like PokerBaazi in 2020, the theft of Rs 11.5 crore from the Karnataka e-procurement portal in 2019, and the theft of 60.6 Bitcoin value ₹ 1.64 crore in 2017 from the Unocoin cryptocurrency change in Karnataka.
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Sriki and Khandelwal had been initially arrested by the Bengaluru Crime Department in November 2020 on prices of buying medicine on the darkish net with Bitcoin. The case led to the cracking of a number of cybercrimes in Karnataka.