Raising questions on the investigation carried out against notorious hacker Srikrishna Ramesh alias Sriki, the charge sheet filed against him in connection with the hacking case makes no mention of the bitcoins recovered from him.
Further, the charge sheet has no mention of Hemanth Mudappa, who was named in the initial complaint by the CCB regarding Sriki’s hacking exploits.
Soon after his arrest, the CCB had issued a statement saying 31 bitcoins worth Rs 9 crore were recovered from Sriki. This key fact is missing from the charge sheet filed against him at the First Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate court in the city.
This has raised questions on the whereabouts of the 31 bitcoins the police claimed to have recovered from the accused.
DH Exclusive | Did Karnataka police sit on key info on 2016 bitcoin heist?
Sriki was arrested in a drugs case last year, following which it was revealed that he was a hacker with an international network and had infiltrated several cryptocurrency exchanges. CCB had then filed a case in the Cottonpet police station on this.
Police arrested several others including Sunish Hegde, Robin Khandelwal, Sujay Raj, Hemanth Mudappa and others. Despite featuring in the initial complaint, Hemanth’s name is missing in the list of key accused in the case, raising another question on why the name was dropped by the police.
Sriki, according to the charge sheet, had claimed that Hemanth also played a role in the hacking of the government’s e-procurement (tender) portal and that he helped him encash the money stolen from there.
Check out latest DH videos here