The role played by some police officers during the investigation of cases against hacker Srikrishna Ramesh alias Sriki, 29, following his arrest in November 2020 by the Bengaluru crime branch “seems like a case of the fence eating the crop”, a special court opined while rejecting the anticipatory bail plea of a former crime branch inspector.
“The petitioner, who is an investigating officer, who had the duty to investigate the matters and to bring the culprits to book, has used his investigating power to do illegal acts such as illegal detention of the accused persons in the earlier case and hacking crypto wallets, websites, gaming apps etc, to make illegal gain,” the special court said in an order on Friday, rejecting the anticipatory bail of former crime branch inspector Sridhar Poojar.
Poojar, who is now a Deputy Superintendent of Police, and three of his former crime branch colleagues are among four police officers named by a CID SIT in Karnataka along with a cyber expert in an
FIR alleging illegal confinement, breach of trust by a public servant and destruction of evidence.A case was filed on January 24, 2024 in connection with the crime branch’s handling of cases after Sriki’s arrest in November 2020.
The four former crime branch officers accused in the SIT FIR are Poojar, inspectors Prashanth Babu, Chandradhar S R and Lakshmikanthaiah and private cyber expert K S Santhosh Kumar who assisted the probe in 2020.
On Friday, the special CID court allowed the bail pleas of Babu and Kumar who were arrested on January 24.The special court cited their co-operation in the probe and the SIT’s indication that they were not required for further custodial interrogation while granting bail.
However, in Poojar’s case the court remarked that his custodial interrogation may be required since he has not cooperated in the investigation.
“At this stage, there are prima-facie materials regarding illegal detention of the accused persons in the earlier case and doing the act of hacking by using them.The petitioner being a Police officer and I.O., the act is more serious,” the court observed.
“It is stated that he is not co-operating in the investigation of the case.Though the petitioner has produced documents to show that he has appeared for the investigation on 25.1.2024, 2.2.2024 and 3.2.2024, it appears that he is not properly co-operating in the investigation of the case, ” the court observed.
The special court said that though the officer had obtained a stay order from the Karnataka High Court against precipitative action without evidence by the SIT, it was in connection with the investigation of an earlier FIR and “not in respect of the present case”.
“The complaint shows that the investigating agency has collected some material against this petitioner to proceed with the case.Considering the above facts and circumstances of the case, I am of the opinion custodial interrogation of this petitioner is required,” the court said.
“The counsel for the petitioner has raised technicalities in the defense of the petitioner.The petitioner in the guise of those technicalities he can not avoid custodial interrogation.
Therefore, at this stage, he is not entitled for the grant of anticipatory bail,” the court said.
The investigations in the case has found dozens of procedural lapses by the CCB in its probe against the hacker and his associates — including illegal detention, no documentation of the logins, passwords and data for the computer usage by the accused and even the provision of a laptop worth Rs 60,000 by the police to Sriki to display his hacking skills in police custody.
Earlier this week, a senior police officer, Sandeep Patil, who headed the Bengaluru crime branch between 2020 and 2021 and was the supervisory officer in the cases against the hacker, appeared before the SIT to provide clarifications on the probe carried out against Sriki under his watch in 2020-21.
One of the key findings that the SIT has reported in the court filings in the recent weeks during custody and bail arguments is the recovery of a new laptop that was specifically bought at the instance of the arrested police officer Prashant Babu and given to the hacker for use while in police custody after his arrest in November 2020.
“Further, the laptop allegedly used in commission of the offense has been recovered,” the special court observed while allowing the arrested police officer’s bail plea on Friday.
The SIT has found digital evidence to suggest that a large amount of Bitcoins from cloud wallets belonging to the Sriki was transferred to hardware wallets while the hacker was in police custody.
The SIT investigations have also found digital traces to indicate that police officers used the services of private cyber and crypto experts to wipe out the digital access history of crypto wallets stored on cloud servers by the hacker (while he was in the custody of the CCB police legally and illegally between November 2020 to January 2021).
The hacker Srikrishna and his accountant Robin Khandelwal were initially arrested by the crime branch officer Sridhar Pujar in November 2020 on charges of ordering drugs on the internet using Bitcoin.
Sriki’s friends Sunish Hegde and others were initially accused in the Bitcoin for drugs case and later Sriki and Khandelwal were named in the case.
The CCB police claimed to have arrested Sriki on November 17, 2020 with the joint commissioner of police (crime) issuing a public statement on social media on November 18, 2020 but the SIT has alleged that the hacker was in ilegal custody from November 14.
The SIT has alleged that the hacker’s associate and accountant Robin Khandelwal was illegally detained from November 14 to November 31, 2020, before his arrest was shown.
The hacker was arrested in November 2020 by the crime branch police in a case involving the purchase of drugs on the darknet using Bitcoins.It eventually led to the cracking of several cybercrimes in Karnataka – involving Sriki, including a Rs 11.5 crore heist from the Karnataka e-governance cell in July-August 2019.
The handling of the cases involving the hacker by the police under the
BJP regime in Karnataka after the arrests in November 2020 resulted in allegations of corruption by the Congress when it was in the opposition between 2020-2023.
A CID SIT was constituted by the Congress government on June 30, 2023, after it came to power, to probe the Bitcoin scam.
Sriki has said in police statements that are on record in charge sheets filed by the crime branch that he was forced to handover all crypto currency in his possession to the police after he was in police custody between November 2020 and January 2021.
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