Karnataka SIT takes MLAT route for information

There are allegations of police officials grabbing a large cache of Bitcoin that was found in the crypto wallets of hacker Srikrishna Ramesh alias Sriki, 29, after his arrest in November 2020.

At the time of the hacker’s arrest in 2020 the value of one Bitcoin was in the range of $25,000 (around Rs 20 lakh) which soared to as high as $60,000 (around Rs 50 lakh by April 2021). The value of one Bitcoin recently hit $70,000.

The SIT has sought information through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) route from crypto currency exchanges located in different countries around the world which the international hacker Srikrishna Ramesh alias Sriki, 29, has claimed to have hacked, an SIT official said.

The efforts at gathering information of the alleged breach of crypto currency exchanges by the hacker is part of efforts to establish whether funds stolen from these exchanges were used to pay off police officers and others. Sriki was arrested in November 2020 by the Bengaluru crime branch in a case of buying drugs from the dark web using Bitcoin.

During interrogation, Sriki claimed that he had hacked multiple international exchanges between 2016 to 2020 and used stolen Bitcoin to live a lavish life along with his aides.

He also claimed that he handed over a large cache of the crypto currency in his possession to police officers after his arrest.

The Bengaluru police, which kept the hacker and his accountant Robin Khandelwal in their custody for nearly two months between November 2020 and January 2021 for different cases, did not report the recovery of any stolen Bitcoin or other crypto currency from the hacker.

Following allegations of large-scale corruption involving crime branch policemen and political leaders in the handling of the cases of the hacker during the 2019-2023 tenure of the then BJP government in Karnataka, the new Congress government constituted the SIT in June 2023.

The SIT, which found proof that Sriki hacked the Unocoin crypto currency exchange headquartered at Tumkur in Karnataka in June 2017, arrested the hacker again on May 7 this year. Sriki allegedly stole 60.6 Bitcoins valued at Rs 1.14 crore.

“There is evidence from the hacker’s laptop to confirm the Unocoin hacking,” an SIT official said. The SIT has found that the hacker and his associates were dealing in large amounts of money for travel, purchase of cars, chartering flights and stays at luxurious hotels.

The funds that the hacker generated are suspected to have been obtained from multiple hacking crimes that were committed. The evidence of the hacking has to be obtained from exchanges where the hacking is alleged to have occurred to confirm the claims of the hacker and establish that stolen funds were being used for payments in India, an SIT officer said.

One of the angles being investigated by the SIT in the Bitcoin scam is the purchase and return (for a refund) of a high end Porsche Macan car – bought from a Bengaluru showroom for Rs 57 lakh in January 2018 through funds transferred by Sriki’s accountant Robin Khandelwal.

The funds for the Porsche car are suspected to have originated from crypto exchange hackings.

Earlier, the Bengaluru police had written a letter to the Interpol on April 28, 2021 for information about the alleged hacking crimes of the hacker but did not report the receipt of any information from the international police agency.

The case involving the purchase of drugs on the darknet eventually led to the cracking of several cybercrimes in Karnataka involving the then 26-year-old Sriki. It also solved the case of a Rs 11.5 crore heist from the Karnataka e-governance cell in 2019.