Expert website hacker who 'bought drugs with booty' held

A software engineer accused of hacking the Karnataka government’s e-procurement website last year has now been arrested for stealing data from websites, extorting money from companies and buying drugs on the Darknet using Bitcoin.

Jayanagar resident Srikrishna, 25, was arrested by the CCB on the basis of information provided by M Sujay who was arrested on November 4 while allegedly trying to collect an overseas package containing 500 grams of hydro ganja. Sujay’s arrest led the police to seven more drug suspects, including Hemanth Muddappa, Suneesh Hegde and Prasid Shetty, who all have been booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and are currently being interrogated in police custody.

Srikrishna had teamed up with Hegde, Shetty, Sujay and Muddappa to extort money from companies whose websites he hacked. The group would buy drugs on the Darknet using Bitcoin and consume them in flats owned by Hegde and Shetty in Sanjaynagar, star hostels, resorts and farmhouses in and around Bengaluru, besides supplying them to parties, said Sandeep Patil, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime).

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is probing the group’s alleged involvement in the hacking of the state government’s e-procurement website in 2019, Patil added.

Srikrishna studied until PUC in Bengaluru before moving to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to pursue BSc in computer science from 2014 to 2017.

An expert in programming, he allegedly hacked online game RuneScape and poker websites among other gaming portals. His strategy was to hack the accounts of winning players and usurp the money. He even hacked Bitcoin transactions, according to Patil.