BENGALURU: Hacker Sri Krishna Ramesh aka Sriki, the main accused in the Bitcoin case, was arrested by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) in connection with a 2017 case, from a luxury hotel on Ballari Road early on Tuesday morning. Sriki is allegedly evading SIT inquiries and had failed to respond to notices issued by the agency in connection with the case.
The case was filed against Sriki by BV Harish, Director of Unocoin Technologies in Tumakuru, at the New Extension Police station in Tumakuru on March 26, 2017.
Sriki was accused of hacking into the company’s server and stealing 60.6 Bitcoins worth Rs 1.14 crore. The cost of each Bitcoin was said to be Rs 1.67 lakh. The case was transferred to SIT for further investigation on July 18, 2023.
The laptop recovered from Sriki was subjected to scientific analysis and the SIT was successful in cracking the case.
In the Bitcoin scam, SIT is investigating eight cases registered in Cottonpet, KG Nagar, Ashoknagar and other cyber crime police stations. Sriki was out on bail in these cases.
Sriki, a resident of Jayanagar, went by the aliases online as AP, Rose and Big Boss. A software programmer, he is said to have picked up technical skills in his school days that enabled him to allegedly commit several cyber crimes. He allegedly hacked into the main website of his school to change his and others’ attendance and marks records regularly. After his schooling, he went to Amsterdam in 2014 to study computer science.
After his return, he was accused of hacking into Indian poker websites and an online gaming website. With the money he made, he would purchase drugs from the dark web using Bitcoins, get it delivered to the Foreign Post Office in Chamarajpet. On November 4 last year, he received ‘hydro ganja’ from his contacts at the Chamarajpet foreign post-office and his contact was caught by the police. This case brought Sriki under the police radar.