Don’t derail the bitcoin scandal investigation

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The Law Enforcement (ED) Directorate has filed a case against hacker Srikrishna Ramesh alias Sriki and 18 others in a case related to hacking and stealing Rs 11.5 crore from a Karnataka government portal in 2019. This case is just one part of what has become known as the Bitcoin scam under the BJP regime, involving the hacking of cryptocurrency exchanges, online poker sites and portals governmental. The indictment was filed even as the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to reinvestigate the scam. After siphoning off funds from the government portal, Sriki and his associates allegedly converted them into bitcoins to sell drugs. When Bengaluru Police apprehended Sriki in November 2020, in a case of hacking a gambling website, little did they know his arrest would turn out to be the BJP government’s biggest political nightmare. A year later, Srikis’ alleged crimes came back to haunt the Basavaraj Bommai government. Bommai was interior minister when Sriki was first arrested. A full-fledged political brawl had broken out with the ruling and opposition parties accusing the other of benefiting from the proceeds of Sriki’s crimes. There were also rumors that senior officials, police officers and politicians were involved in the scam.

Read also | Karnataka government forms SIT to investigate Bitcoin scam that surfaced under BJP rule

The scam had caught the public’s imagination with reports surfacing that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been briefed on the matter during his visit to the United States and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had landed in Bengaluru to investigate the matter. This information was later denied by Araga Jnanendra, then Karnataka’s interior minister. The delay in handing over the case to the ED and alleged irregularities in the investigation by state agencies had raised suspicions that the government was trying to protect the big and powerful. Congress, then in opposition, had promised to reopen the case if it came to power. While the ED has explored the angle of money laundering, the SIT, which will include officers from various departments with expertise in investigating cyber and cryptocurrency crimes, will investigate other other aspects of the scam.

The case has national and international ramifications and the ED’s questioning of the sons and grandsons of several politicians indicates that there is no smoke without fire. It is curious that the ED suddenly became aware of the matter. Typically, in such cases, such a development raises suspicions that one agency is about to deny custody of the accused to another agency. The investigation should be taken to its logical end and ED and SIT should not work at cross purposes. The culprits, however powerful, must be brought to justice.

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