Bengaluru City Police for the first time on Saturday, November 13 publicly stated that they have not recovered any bitcoin Sandeep Patil had told reporters that Rs 9 crore worth of BTC was recovered from Sriki after he was arrested in a drug related offence in November 2020.
Former Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge on Saturday raked the issue claiming that Sriki was kept in custody for an extended period by slapping different cases on him to make money for people in power.
Police said although they opened an account after obtaining a government order for the same, they were advised by external experts that the wallet which Sriki claimed was his was actually a live wallet of an exchange.
The police added, “Subsequently, court permission was obtained to use the password to transfer the said coins to the police wallet account.
The police further said that they acted in a transparent manner, involving domain experts and appropriately recording all the proceedings, which were submitted to the court.
Among the other allegations of cover-up, the Congress alleged that the scam and its alleged cover-up had reached Prime Minister Modi and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was also in the city.
Further, the statement said that the police had voluntarily approached Interpol after preliminary investigation into the voluntary statements made by Sriki, in which he claimed high volume hacking of websites without any specific details.
They said the money lying in 14 bank accounts of Nimmi Enterprises and others were attached under the Prevention of Money laundering Act.