Ex-CCB inspector, private firm CEO arrested in Bitcoin case

Three more former CCB inspectors — Lakshmikanthaiah, Chandradhar, and Sridhar K Pujar — have also been named in the FIR registered by the CID’s cybercrime police on Wednesday. All have been served notices under CrPc Section 41a to appear before police for questioning. The cop reportedly kept hacker Sriki in 'illegal confinement, forced him to break into websites'.

Bengaluru: A police inspector, who previously headed the technical centre of the Central Crime Branch (CCB), and the CEO of a private company are the first persons to be arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) in the infamous Bitcoin case.

On Thursday, a court remanded both suspects — Prashanth Babu DM, who was in charge of the CCB’s Technical Support Centre about four years ago, and Santosh Kumar KS, the CEO of GCID Technologies Pvt Ltd — to police custody for seven days.

Three more former CCB inspectors — Lakshmikanthaiah, Chandradhar, and Sridhar K Pujar — have also been named in the FIR registered by the CID’s cybercrime police on Wednesday. All have been served notices under CrPc Section 41a to appear before police for questioning.

The FIR invoked IPC sections related to wrongful confinement, criminal breach of trust, and the destruction of electronic records and evidence.

The FIR states that Babu and Kumar kept serial hacker Srikrishna alias Sriki in “illegal confinement” at the CAR guesthouse in the city from November 14 to 17, 2020. Sriki’s accomplice, Robin Khandelwal, was illegally detained at the same place from November 14 to 30, 2020, the FIR states.

As per the FIR, several days before Sriki’s “formal arrest”, Pujar kept him in “illegal confinement”. Later, during his police custody following his arrest, Sriki was taken to a private company without the court’s permission. At this juncture, Sriki was forced to hack some websites and destroy evidence. He was also allowed to “liberally” use a private laptop, the FIR notes.

Babu subsequently introduced Kumar, the CEO, to the other three police inspectors and involved him in the investigation for “providing technical assessment”.

According to well-placed sources, acting at Babu’s behest, Kumar bought a cryptocurrency wallet from Surat and gave it to him. Babu allegedly used hacking tools to break into certain websites and later deleted the bash history to erase the trail.

Bash history stores command history in the home directory.

In December 2020 and January 2021, Sriki was allegedly taken to the GCID office multiple times and confined there, sometimes at night, as per the FIR.

The FIR further notes that on three different occasions, Kumar accessed Khandelwal’s cryptocurrency wallet and illegally transferred Rs 1.8 lakh worth of Bitcoin to his account. Further, the user names and passwords of Sriki and Khandelwal’s crypto wallets and email IDs were changed at the private company’s office.

Babu even bought a laptop for Rs 60,000 and gave it to Sriki several times, coercing him to hack certain websites and carry out other illegal activities, the FIR states.

“During his police custody, Sriki accessed his Amazon server multiple times, but cleared the evidence by deleting the bash history,” according to the FIR.

On January 22, 2021, when Sriki was left alone with the laptop, he even sent an email to a woman friend, the FIR adds.

Babu played a major role in these illegal activities with active help from Kumar, the sources said.

The SIT is investigating the cryptocurrency wallet and the deleted hacking tools.

What is the Bitcoin case?

The CCB arrested Sriki on November 17, 2020, accusing him of ordering hydro ganja on the Dark Web with Bitcoins that he earned by hacking the state government’s e-governance and other websites. He allegedly siphoned off Rs 11.5 crore.

A case was registered at the KG Nagar police station under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and various sections of the IPC. The scandal is known as the Bitcoin case.

Robin Khandelwal’s arrest was shown on November 30, 2020.

The Congress government formed the SIT last year to investigate the Bitcoin case following allegations that politicians, bureaucrats and police officers had siphoned off the cryptocurrency seized from Sriki.