E-Paper
Aides tried to abduct Sriki for not delivering bitcoins: Police
According to the statements in charge sheet against Srikrishna, his associates Suneesh Hegde, Prasidh Shetty and Robin Khandelwal have claimed that the former used to make them pay for his lavish lifestyle, promising them Bitcoins. When he didn’t keep his promise, they even tried to abduct him.
Associates of Srikrishna, the person at the centre of Karnataka’s cryptocurrency scandal, had tried to abduct the hacker as he had failed to deliver Bitcoins in return for the former bankrolling his lavish lifestyle, details from the charge sheet reveal.
The hacker has become the main person of interest in a raging Bitcoin scandal in Karnataka that has engulfed the entire political class with the police trying to unearth the purported scam and its magnitude.
According to the statements in charge sheet against Srikrishna, his associates Suneesh Hegde, Prasidh Shetty and Robin Khandelwal have claimed that the former used to make them pay for his lavish lifestyle, promising them Bitcoins. When he didn’t keep his promise, they even tried to abduct him.
In other instances, too Srikrishna had made his associates pay for his luxurious life promising them Bitcoins.
“He claimed to have hacked and stolen several bitcoins and promised to give them to me. So, I looked after all expenses of SriKi. Till now, I have spent over ₹2 crore on him,” read Suneesh’s statement.
Details of this conflict within the gang were shared by Khandelwal who was helping Srikrishna convert his Bitcoins to cash. Khandelwal, a B.Com graduate from Kolkata had started his career running his father’s rice mill. Later he learnt about Bitcoins and started operating a cryptocurrency exchange.
According to the chargesheet, Robin first came in touch with Sriki in 2017, when the hacker contacted him to convert Bitcoins. Initially, Srikrishna introduced himself under a ‘Dariel Herman’ and asked Khandelwal to sell 900 bitcoins.
After this first transaction, Srikrishna remained in constant touch with Khandelwal and in 2018, the two met for the first time in Bengaluru. During this meeting Srikrishna revealed his real identity. He told Khandelwal that he was a hacker and he could provide many Bitcoins for conversion.
Srikrishna would transfer Bitcoins he acquired after hacking to Robin who would then convert the Bitcoins into cash, keep his commission and then transfer the money to various accounts. According to the charge sheet, Khandelwal said that Sriki sent him 130 Bitcoins from 2017 till December 20, 2020. Robin sold them and, after taking his commission, transferred Rs. 3.48 crores to multiple accounts Sriki had given him.
It was during this trip to Bengaluru that Khandelwal was introduced to the other accused in the case, namely Suneesh Hedge, Prasidh Shetty and Sujay Raj by Srikrishna.
These three men were Srikrishna’s associates in the hacking into poker websites. Explaining their modus operandi, the chargesheet reads that Poker sites were hacked by Srikrishna when his friends played the poker games online. After hacking into the website, Srikrishna would give them details of the opponent’s cards and they would win the game and the cash prize that came with it.
For these hacking sessions, Srikrishna insisted on staying in five-star hotels in Goa, which later became the root of conflict within the gang. Srikrishna made Suneesh foot the bill for these expensive stays and according to the charge sheet they stayed in Goa for 10 days.
When Srikrishna began ignoring their calls the trio hatched a plot against the hacker. Robin in his statement claimed that he put a fake bandage on his leg to scare Srikrishna that he was beaten up by the gang, forcing him to flee the hotel he was staying in.
Later they asked Khandelwal to bring Srikrishna to a safe house in Bidadi, in the outskirts of Bengaluru, on the pretext that he was taking him to a safe house. Here the gang locked up and threatened the hacker to pay their share of bitcoins.
Khandelwal in his statement claimed that while locked up in the apartment, Srikrishna convinced him that they should escape from the balcony and they should keep the Bitcoins for themselves. Convinced by his plan, Srikrishna escaped from the apartment with the help of Khandelwal, reads his statement.
Months later Suneesh is arrested in a drug case and during the interrogation, he reveals that it was Srikrishna who purchased the drugs for him. Following this Srikrishna is arrested on November 17.
