DH Exclusive | Did Karnataka police sit on key info on 2016 bitcoin heist?

Karnataka police appear to have delayed escalating notorious hacker Sriki’s case to national agencies, even after learning that he was involved in the Bitfinex cryptocurrency exchange hack in 2016, considered to be the largest cryptocurrency heist at the time.

Though Sriki was arrested in December 2020 and a charge sheet with his confession of the Bitfinex hack was filed in February 2021, the Basavaraj Bommai administration informed the Interpol wing of CBI only on April 28, 2021.

The CBI’s Interpol was informed two weeks after international agencies and blockchain analytics firms tracked the transfer of the long-dormant, blacklisted bitcoins from cold wallets to newly-created wallets.