Voluntarily gave bitcoins to cops, claims hacker Sriki

Two charge sheets filed by Bengaluru City Police against notorious hacker Srikrishna Ramesh alias Sriki raise questions on the investigators’ claims on the bitcoins recovered from him.

While the voluntary statement of the hacker filed by City Crime Branch (CCB) makes no mention of him handing over bitcoins to the police, the one filed by the Cyber Crime Police claims that he “accepted to give away the bitcoins” while in custody.

Both the charge sheets were filed on the same day - February 22, 2021 before the First Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate.

It can be recalled that the Bengaluru police had said, earlier this year, that they recovered 31 bitcoins worth Rs 9 crore from Sriki.

The first CCB charge sheet was regarding a case of hacking of bitcoin accounts and ransomware attacks on websites filed at Cottonpet Police Station on November 27, 2020, while the other was on the hack of Casino143 and Pokersaint websites filed at Cyber Crime Police Station on December 23, 2020.

Both the voluntary statements of the hacker were identical, save for a few additional paragraphs in the charge sheet by Cyber Crime Police.

“(sic) I was held in police custody for almost 50 days. Although, I had the intention of giving the bitcoins to the police, but my lawyer and my friend, Sunish Hegde, advised me against it, saying that if I give them the bitcoins, the case against me will become stronger and I will never get bail. That is the reason why I did not give them bitcoins initially,” Sriki has stated.

“However, I understood the case scenario that even if I do not give them the bitcoins, they can use forensic methods to find the bitcoins, after a talk with the investigating officer. So, post consultation with him, I voluntarily accepted to give away the bitcoins which I had kept in various wallets in different cryptocurrencies,” Sriki stated in the last paragraph of charge sheet filed by Cyber Crime Police station.

However, the CCB charge sheet, filed over the hacking of bitcoins makes no mention of this as claimed in the Cyber Crime charge sheet filed for hacking poker websites.

Hacker hoodwinked cops?

Notorious hacker Srikrishna alias Sriki appears to have hoodwinked the investigating team of Cyber Crime Police station in Adugodi, Bengaluru.

The team was investigating the hacking of two gaming websites Casino143 and Pokersaint. According to a panchanama filed by the police, cryptocurrency was in the wallet of the accused hacker Sriki. He provided the password for the wallet that he claimed was his.

When the wallet was opened, it showed a total of 64.3817 Bitcoins and an available balance of 186.811 Bitcoins. Subsequently, the panchanama claims that live transaction was reflected on the window, transferring the coins to the police wallet ID from Sreeki’s wallet.

After a while, however, officials checked the Transaction ID on the Block Chain Explorer that revealed that the ID never existed. Subsequently, the police was told by experts that the bitcoin transfer application was modified to show fake transactions, and the wallet was a crypto-exchange.

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