BENGALURU: The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is likely to submit the chargesheet by this weekend against hacker Srikrishna alias Sriki and others in the hacking and siphoning off of Rs 11.55 crore earnest money deposit funds from the e-procurement cell of the Centre for e-Governance, Government of Karnataka.
“Srikrishna had allegedly hacked the government portal on the insistence of his friend and co-accused, who is a contractor, and had siphoned off Rs 11.55 crore,” said informed sources. The CID has, however, remained tightlipped about the investigation in the case and the impending chargesheet.
Srikrishna, in his voluntary statement (which has no evidentiary value) to the Central Crime Branch (CCB), had reportedly confessed that he had first attempted hacking the e-procurement site of the State Government in August 2018 using a database attacking tool — Salmap — but was unsuccessful. In 2019, he had exploited a remote code execution vulnerability, got access to the bidder information and downloaded all the files relating to the bids, excel sheet files containing the transaction details, bid reference, payment amount, IFSC codes and account numbers of bidders among others.
Meanwhile, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has reportedly written to the CCB requesting sharing the case details on the alleged Bitcoin (BTC) scam in which Srikrishna is the main accused and has been charge-sheeted.
“The ED had in August provisionally attached Rs 1.44 crore in the hacking and siphoning off of funds by Srikrishna and others under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Further action will be taken based on the material provided by the investigating agencies and ED’s investigation,” said sources.