Karnataka home minister Araga Jnanendra on Tuesday told the state legislative council that there is no connection between the state and alleged hacking on Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange in 2016. The minister made the statement in response to the Opposition’s demand for a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the alleged bitcoin controversy.
The minister said that investigating agencies in the United States probing the Bitfinex hacking have not reported any links to India or the state in particular, even though the hacker, Srikrishna Ramesh, who was arrested in Bengaluru claimed he was part of the hack. “… government will get a comprehensive inquiry into the scam,” he said.
Srikrishna Ramesh, alias Sriki, was arrested by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) police on November 18, 2020, in a drug peddling case. He had bought drugs from international dealers using Bitcoins on the dark web. In the interrogation that followed CCB found that the software engineer was also involved in a series of online crimes.
During his interrogation, Srikrishna confessed to being part of a group of hackers that broke into a cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex on August 2, 2016. These hackers collectively stole 120,000 Bitcoins, worth around ₹72 million. The case caught the attention of the international enforcement agencies and India was flagged about the development as well.
The issue became political when Bengaluru police, despite information about his involvement in the Bitcoin hack in December 2020, did not reveal this information to central agencies until August 2021.
{{/usCountry}}The issue became political when Bengaluru police, despite information about his involvement in the Bitcoin hack in December 2020, did not reveal this information to central agencies until August 2021.
{{/usCountry}}Earlier this year, Bengaluru police filed a charge sheet against 11 people, including ‘Sriki’, in a case regarding the purchase of drugs from the dark web using bitcoin. It was this drug seizure that brought the hacking history of ‘Sriki’, including the ₹11.5 crore cyber theft from the Karnataka e-governance cell in 2019.
Apart from this case, the computer science graduate from a college in Amsterdam in the Netherlands has been charge-sheeted in seven other cases for hacking and other cyber fraud.