Suspended Dy SP arrested in Bengaluru by SIT in bitcoin scam case

Bengaluru: A suspended Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySP) with Internal Security Division (ISD) surrendered before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Monday in connection with an evidence tampering case, a well-placed police source told DH.

The SIT’s investigating officers arrested Sridhar Pujar on Monday afternoon and produced him before a Bengaluru court. The magistrate remanded Pujar to a three-day police custody.

Pujar is the fourth police officer and the fifth person to be arrested by the SIT, which was constituted by the Karnataka government in July 2023, after the Congress was voted to power in the state.

The SIT has been tasked with investigating irregularities in the Central Crime Branch (CCB) officers’ probe into the infamous bitcoin case that had shocked the state in 2020-2021.

The bitcoin case unravelled after Pujar, who was investigating the KG Nagar’s NDPS case in 2020, arrested Srikrishna alias Sriki, a tech geek known for his exceptional hacking skills. Pujar seized two MacBook Pros, two pen drives, and one hard disc from Srikrishna, according to the SIT source. The case soon garnered huge attention as names of politicians and bureaucrats popped up in the case.

After the SIT was constituted, DySP Ravishankar filed the first FIR at the Cottonpet police station, alleging that the MacBooks seized by the CCB were tampered with.

The SIT source told DH that Pujar seized the MacBooks on November 17 and 21, 2020, and a mirror image of MacBooks was done multiple times between November 22 and December 11, 2023. However, Pujar hadn’t sought court permission to access the MacBooks.

“When we use a mirror image of any laptops during investigations, no extra file should be created, but in this case, we learnt that there was ‘deletion’ and ‘creation’ of files during the process. The same was proved by the FSL reports,” the officer told DH, adding that it amounts to tampering with evidence.

The SIT officer said that they will question Pujar about accessing MacBooks without permission and what he did after accessing them.

The arrest of Pujar came after the Karnataka High Court rejected his bail plea last month. Justice MG Uma had observed that it is shocking to see high-ranking police officers stooping to the level of tampering with documents with the help of the accused.

The other police officers who were arrested are Prashanth Babu DM, Lakshmikanthaiah and Chandradhar. All of them have obtained bail in the case.

What is the bitcoin case?

The CCB arrested 11 people, including Srikrishna, in 2020 for ordering hydroganja on Darknet using bitcoins.

Further probe revealed that Srikrishna allegedly hacked government portals and crypto exchanges to steal these bitcoins. From there on, the case took interesting turns, and new names, including IPS officers and politicians, popped up.

The Karnataka government then had formed an SIT to probe the case further.