The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the CID probing the bitcoin case, led by ADGP Manish Kharbikar, on Saturday, conducted a series of raids on the houses of Central Crime Branch (CCB) officials and two people who allegedly fabricated the seized documents and accessed the e-wallets of the prime accused Sriki for personal gain.
A team of officials raided nine places belonging to four police officials and two people, including DySP Sridhar Pojar, Inspectors Prashanth Babu, Chandradhar and Lakshikath, in different locations and recovered four laptops, eight mobile phones, two NAS (network attached storage) devices, 10 hard drives, five pen drives, a memory card and other relevant documents.
Details of hacking
The SIT officials had sought the details of the hacking and the laptops the accused officials seized from Sriki for investigations. However, the accused allegedly refused to cooperate with the investigations and failed to hand over the seized electronic gadgets, following which the SIT officials carried out the raid, sources said.
Investigations by the SIT officials revealed that the accused officials had taken Sriki into custody for investigations but taken him into the offices of private cyber security experts for questioning and to get access to his account to recover the bitcoins, which is illegal. The SIT officials also raided the offices of the cyber security experts, identified as Santosh and Gagan Jain, who owned firms that deal with cyber forensics and darknet investigation and recovered a considerable amount of material about the case.
Two more arrested
Meanwhile, the SIT, who were also probing the e-procurement website hacking case, arrested two more persons allegedly involved in laundering the proceeds of the money stolen after hacking into the state government e portal in 2019.
With the arrest of Nitiin Meshram and Darshith Patel, the total number of arrests has reached 21, said a senior police officer. The team based on their information is conducting search operations in several places in Koramangala and Bommanahalli.
On Friday, the SIT team arrested a farmer, Harwinder Singh of Kapurthala in Punjab, for similar charges of money laundering from the proceeds of the e-procurement portal of the Karnataka government.
4-year-old case
The case dates back to December 2019, when an official of the State government’s e-procurement cell lodged a complaint with the Cybercrime Police Station of the CID stating that unknown persons had hacked the portal and initiated unauthorised fund transfers, causing a loss of several crores of rupees. Based on the complaint, the police arrested notorious hacker Sri Krishna alias Sriki, who was earlier arrested in an NDPS case. “While Sriki had hacked the portal and transferred the funds, the other accused had helped him to transfer the funds to various bank accounts, charging a commission and laundering the proceeds of the crime,” said a police officer.
