Ex-CMs: Protect scam accused, he’s at risk

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The multi-crore Bitcoin scam is becoming  murkier by the day with  two former CMsSiddaramaiah  of the Congress  and H.D. Kumaraswamy of the  JD(S)-asking the  BJP government to  provide protection to Srikrishna Ramesh or Sriki,  the person at the heart of  the scam, claiming that  his life was in danger.

According to Siddaramaiah, many influential  people are said to be involved in the scam and so  protecting Sriki has become necessary. He added  that it was imperative to  keep the alleged kingpin  safe to unravel the truth  about the scandal which  reportedly runs into several thousand crores.  Soon followed  Kumaraswamy’s  tweet with the exCM wondering if  the alleged hacker,  said to be behind the  scandal that has embarrassed the Basavaraj  Bommai government,  was facing a threat to his  life?

With Siddaramaiah  saying so, it was time to  give Sriki protection,  said the JD(S) leader in a  rare moment of agreement with his arch rival.

The scam has become a raging political controversy with Congress leaders alleging that the transfer of  Bitcoins running into several crores, happened when  Sriki was in the custody of  the Bengaluru police. This  happened at a time when  Bommai himself was the  Karnataka home minister  in the Yediyurappa cabinet  with fingers being pointed  at the CM alleging his role  in the scam. A Congress  leader had even alleged  that the mastermind was  drugged in police custody.

Reports had done the  rounds that Bommai was  on his way out after former  CM Jagadish Shettar airdashed to Delhi for ‘consultations’.

Sriki was also accused of  hacking into Indian poker  websites and an online  gaming website  and of using  the Bitcoins to  allegedly purchase drugs  from the dark  web. The first police case in Bengaluru was registered by the  KG Nagar police and the  drugs case was later transferred to the Central Crime  Branch (CCB) for further  investigation.

Sriki is not in custody  now. Sources say Sriki has  aliases on the internet such  as ’AP’, Rose and ‘Big Boss.’  He was born on 30th March,  1995 and is a software programmer and a resident  of Jayanagar. His schooling was in Bengaluru and  he is said to have picked  up several technical skills  which allegedly turned out  to be useful for several cybercrime related activities.  When he was in 4th grade,  he learnt the basics of web  exploitation, Java, Reverse  engineering and wrote his  first Bot which means ‘Robot Player’ and ‘Back on  Topic’ for a game called  RuneScape, by a company  in the United Kingdom  known as JaGeX  ltd. This was said  to be his first attempt at reverse  engineering obfuscated games  and binary exploitation.