Hacker held, bitcoins worth 9 crore seized

Bengaluru: City Central Crime Branch (CCB) on Friday seized bitcoins worth Rs 9 crore from a 25-year-old hacker identified as Srikrishna, who along with five of his friends, was involved in hacking into three bitcoin exchanges and ten poker websites by pushing three types of malware.

Speaking to the media, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Sandeep Patil said, "They also hacked into YFI coin (Yearn Finance) Ethereum sites in various countries using a similar modus operandi."

According to the police records, Srikrishna alias Shreeki alias Krishna, a resident of Jayanagar in south Bengaluru, is a software engineer and was earlier arrested on November 18 for allegedly breaking into government websites, online gaming portals and websites. "During the investigation, it has been found that Srikrishna hacked three bitcoin exchanges and 10 poker sites. Bitcoins worth Rs 9 crore have been seized in this matter".

Srikrishna is known to hack online poker games to win money and bitcoins online. He was also booked for stealing Rs 11 crore from the Karnataka government's e-procurement portal in August 2019.

"We have recovered 31 bitcoins from Krishna, which is worth Rs 9 crore. Along with other accused – Suneesh Hegde, Prasad Shetty, Sujay, Hemanth Mudappa, and Robin Khandelwal. Krishna hacked into various international poker sites, stole data and used it in their gaming sites. We shared all information with the companies concerned, through Interpol," Sandeep Patil further added.

According to Kamal Pant, the accused lived in the Netherlands from 2014 to 2017.