A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Karnataka Police, investigating an alleged Bitcoin-linked corruption scam in the state involving police officials and politicians, has opposed the anticipatory bail plea of the founders of a cryptocurrency firm who assisted the Bengaluru police in 2020 in a probe against hacker Srikrishna Ramesh.
The SIT opposed the bail plea of Sathvik V and Harish B V, the founders of Unocoin Technologies Pvt Ltd, during a hearing in a special court on Monday.
The SIT has issued notices for the questioning of the Unocoin founders in connection with an
FIR it registered on January 24 against a cyber expert and four former policemen of the Bengaluru Crime Branch for malpractices in the probe of multiple cases registered against Ramesh alias Sriki, 29, who was arrested in November 2020.
The SIT arrested K S Santhosh Kumar, cyber expert and the CEO of Group Cyber ID Technologies, and the former head of the Bengaluru police technical cell Prashant Babu, a police inspector, on January 25.The SIT has also named three former Crime Branch officers — Sridhar Poojar (now a DySP), inspectors Chandradhar S R and Lakshmikanthaiah — in the new FIR accusing them of illegal confinement of the hacker and his accountant, breach of trust by a public servant, and destruction of evidence.
A special public prosecutor for the SIT told the special court on Monday that Sriki was asked to hack into Bitcoin exchanges after he was arrested in 2020 and kept in confinement in the GCID office.The co-founders of Unocoin Technologies were called in by the police to monitor the hacking by the hacker, the SIT claimed.
The SIT informed the court one of the Unocoin Technologies founders needed to be questioned about a Rs 7 lakh transaction with one of the police officers named in the FIR.The SIT also produced voluntary statements by Santhosh Kumar and the police officer Prashant Babu “containing serious allegations” to seek denial of anticipatory bail.
The SIT has also obtained voluntary statements from Sriki, who is accused in as many as seven hacking cases in Karnataka, over the pressure brought on him by police officers after his arrest to allegedly provide Bitcoins to them.
The counsel for the Unocoin founders argued that the case essentially involved allegations of wrongdoing by the police in the investigations following Sriki’s arrest and that Sathvik V and Harish B V were called by the police to assist and help understand the activities of the hacker.He said the Unocoin exchange was also hacked in 2017 by Sriki.
The special court has reserved its order in the anticipatory bail plea.
Last Saturday, the court had stated that the interim anticipatory bail sought by the Unocoin founders Sathvik V and Harish B V cannot be granted without hearing the objections of the CID SIT.
On Monday, the SIT after identifying the exchange founders as knowing the activities of the hacker while he was in police custody and based on statements given by the two arrested accused in the case said the anticipatory bail plea must be rejected.
The SIT is investigating a Bitcoin scam dating to the 2020-21 period when the
BJP was in power in Karnataka on account of allegations of large-scale corruption by the police and politicians following Sriki’s arrest.It was formed by the Congress government in July 2023.
Buckingham Palace announced that Britain’s King Charles, 75, has been diagnosed with cancer and will be postponing public duties.This comes after a three-night hospital stay for a corrective procedure on an enlarged prostate, where another issue was found.
The type of cancer was not specified, but sources say it is not prostate cancer..
