Bengaluru (Karnataka): The Karnataka Police have filed a chargesheet against hacker Srikrishna Ramesh, also known as Sriki, in connection with the alleged hacking of the PokerBaazi online gaming website in 2018. The charges were submitted by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in a Bengaluru magistrate’s court.
Sriki, aged 31, faces charges under Section 66C of the Information Technology (IT) Act for fraudulent use of electronic identification and Section 379 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for theft. Both offences carry penalties of up to three years in prison and fines up to Rs 1 lakh.
The PokerBaazi hack
The case originated in December 2018 when Puneeth Singh, owner of Baazi Networks Pvt Ltd, reported that the KYC data of the company’s customers had been hacked. Singh alleged that nearly Rs 67 lakh was illegally transferred to the account of Infinzy IT Solutions Pvt Ltd.
Initial investigations focused on the private company, but the picture changed following Sriki’s arrest in November 2020 in a separate case involving the online purchase of drugs using Bitcoin via the darknet. The Bengaluru police discovered that Sriki and his associates were responsible for illegally accessing the PokerBaazi site.
Police allege that Sriki stole sensitive data and subsequently approached the gaming company owner with an offer to fix website bugs for Rs 50 lakh. Forensic analysis of Sriki’s laptop revealed hacking data not only for PokerBaazi but also for PokerSaint, PPPoker, and other online gaming platforms.
The financial trail
Investigations revealed that on December 12, 2018, 11 transactions amounting to nearly Rs 67 lakh were triggered from PokerBaazi’s RBL Bank account in Delhi through the payment gateway “Cashfree”. Alterations to the source code and configuration parameters of the company’s website enabled the diversion of funds to Infinzy IT Solutions Pvt Ltd in Bengaluru. While the director of Infinzy was initially investigated, he has not been named in the chargesheet.
Additionally, Yashas Gowda, a former associate of Sriki who reportedly helped receive Rs 50 lakh from the hack, was questioned by the SIT but has also not been named in the chargesheet.
Broader bitcoin and cybercrime allegations
The investigation into Sriki’s activities uncovered a multi-crore cybercrime network in Karnataka. In November 2020, Sriki and his accountant Robin Khandelwal were arrested for buying drugs online using Bitcoin, which later led to the discovery of the Rs 11.5 crore heist from the Karnataka state e-procurement portal in 2019.
The SIT also linked Sriki and Khandelwal to a theft of 60.6 Bitcoins in June 2017 from the Unocoin cryptocurrency exchange, valued at approximately Rs 1.64 crore at the time. A separate chargesheet for that case is still pending.
Political and investigative context
Allegations of corruption and mismanagement surfaced during the handling of Sriki’s cases under the BJP government in Karnataka prior to 2023. Following the Congress government coming to power, the SIT was created on June 30, 2023, to specifically probe the Bitcoin-related scams and broader cybercrime activities linked to Sriki. Authorities have seized significant amounts of Bitcoin from Sriki’s crypto wallets after his arrest.
The case highlights the complex intersection of cybercrime, cryptocurrency, and online gaming fraud in India, underlining the challenges faced by law enforcement in tackling sophisticated digital crimes.