The prime accused within the controversial Bitcoin case Srikrishna Ramesh alias Sriki hacked into a number of cryptocurrency buying and selling platforms and made away with 1000’s of bitcoins over the previous five-six years.
In response to the cost sheet accessed by DH, the accused additionally hacked into a number of poker gaming portals and received money prizes illegally. Additional, he’s accused of deploying ransomware on just a few poker gaming portals and extorting a number of crores.
The case has induced ripples among the many political and police circles. The primary cost sheet towards the accused was filed on February 22, 2021, the place authorities have accused him and 4 others of varied cybercrimes.
Sriki, a blackhat hacker, began hacking computer systems throughout his highschool days after being promoted because the moderator of a hacking neighborhood. Over the following decade, he gained experience in breaking into numerous web sites that commerce bitcoins in a number of international locations equivalent to USA, France and Bangladesh.
Sriki didn’t have any financial institution accounts and all his transactions of bitcoins and different monies earned by hacking have been through Robin Khandelwal, one other accused. In an announcement to the police, Sriki claimed that he had given Robin bitcoins price greater than Rs 8 crore, including that he had non-public keys in his cloud account for extra bitcoins he stole.
Among the many web sites hacked by the accused embody BTC2pm.me – the place individuals change bitcoins for cash, Havelock Funding – a inventory buying and selling platform for bitcoin customers, Paytiz – a Bangladeshi change, MPEX – an unlawful cryptocurrency buying and selling platform, Mixexchage – a Ukrainian platform amongst others.
Unlawful beneficial properties
Whereas the unlawful beneficial properties made by hacking into different web sites shouldn’t be clear, Sriki claimed to have infiltrated a recreation referred to as RuneScape as an early teenager and made round $1 million.
Tip.it and Sythe – each portals associated to the recreation – have been hacked by him to make unlawful beneficial properties price $1.6 million.
His first bitcoin change hack was of Bitfinex, from which he stole 2,000 bitcoins, every price round $100-200 {dollars} on the time (Rs 7,000 – 14,000). The present worth of 1 bitcoin is $61,236 or Rs 45.83 lakh.
Sriki additionally hacked Bitcointalk.org, BTC-e.com and Bitcentral exchanges and made away with round $3-3.5 million. All the cash earned on this case, based on him, was splurged on medication and an expensive life-style.
(With inputs from Akram Mohammed)
