Mohammed Nalapad.
Credit: DH File Photo
Bengaluru: Mohammed Haris Nalapad, the son of Shanthinagar MLA NA Haris, was interrogated by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) for three hours on Wednesday in the infamous Bitcoin case, a well-placed source confirmed to DH.
The source said this was a “routine exercise” during police investigation.
“Where there is suspicion regarding something, the person involved in that will be questioned. A few of Nalapad’s associates were known to Srikrishna as well, so he was questioned in the case. We also had suspicions about some money transactions involving Nalapad,” the source told DH.
The questioning of Nalapad comes nearly a month after the SIT arrested serial hacker Srikrishna alias Sriki for stealing 60.6 bitcoins from a Tumakuru-based cryptocurrency exchange in 2017.
The SIT invoked Section 3 of the Karnataka Control of Organised Crime Act (KCOCA), 2000, against Srikrishna and Robin Khandelwal, his money manager.
Khandelwal and Srikrishna were first arrested on November 14, 2020, by the Central Crime Branch (CCB), according to the recent FIR filed by the SIT at the CID cybercrime police station. Both were later released on bail.
The Congress government formed the SIT last year to investigate the Bitcoin case following allegations that politicians, bureaucrats, and police officers had siphoned off the cryptocurrency seized from Srikrishna.