BENGALURU: Months after the bitcoin scam was made public, there is talk that international agencies have landed in India, hot on the trail of Bitcoins. Congress leaders were quick to tweet that there is something fishy about the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the intelligence agency of the United States, landing in India.
Congress leader Priyank Kharge tweeted, “I believe the FBI is in Delhi to investigate the billion-dollar bitcoin scam. Like I said before, if the state investigates the matter diligently, a lot of BJP’s skeletons will tumble out.’’
Congress General Secretary in charge of Karnataka Randeep Singh Surjewala went ballistic on Twitter, and posed a series of questions to the state government. He asked Chief Minister Bommai and Home Minister Araga Jnanendra whether the FBI is in India to investigate the country’s biggest bitcoin scam cover-up under the BJP government. He asked how many bitcoins were stolen, of what value and who in Karnataka was involved.
Surjewala also wanted to know whether the stolen bitcoins were transferred from the wallet of alleged hacker Srikrishna, and whether the ‘Whale Alerts’, reflecting the transfer of 14,682 stolen ‘Bitfinix’ bitcoins valued at Rs 5,240 crore, on two days -- December 1, 2020, and April 14, 2021 -- when Srikrishna was in custody, are correlated?
“What is the role and responsibility of Chief Minister Sri Basavaraj Bommai, who was home minister in-charge at the relevant time and others in the state government?” he tweeted. He also asked why Interpol was not informed, and why the BJP government had waited for over five months, till April 24, 2021, to write to Interpol and that too after the release of Srikrishna on April 17, 2021?
He sought to know why the National Investigation Agency, Serious Fraud Investigation Office and Enforcement Directorate were not informed by the Karnataka BJP government. “Let HM and CM Bommai answer,’’ he said. It has been more than eight months since the bitcoin scam surfaced, leaving a trail of unanswered questions.