Srikrishna Ramesh is seen interacting with the media
Bitcoin scam: SIT probed hacking case amicably resolved by China police
The blrpost.com will be bringing out series of Bitcoin stories based on the chargesheets filed by the SIT
Bengaluru
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) that submitted the chargesheet in the multi-crore Bitcoin scam recently, has investigated the hacking of the Coineal crypto currency exchange that was ‘amicably resolved’ by People’s Police (China police) of People’ Republic of China.
The chargesheet accessed by the blrpopst.com reveals that on February 21, 2019, accused Srikrishna Ramesh aka Sriki transferred 448 Ethereum (ETH) and 60,500 United States Dollar Tether (USDT) to the Binance wallet of Robin Khandelwal. ETH was moved at 00:13:07 and USDT was at 00:13:32 of Indian Standard Time (IST). Robin was a friend of Sriki. This chargesheet pertains to crime number 153/2020 registered in Cottonpete police station.
After two hours into transfer of cryptocurrencies, Khandelwal’s wallet was frozen by the crypto exchange Binance. The wallet was suspended as they found out that Khandelwal received currency that were stolen from Coineal. The Coineal was also known as Coineel and CoinEsl. The exchange that no longer exists was based out of China.
As soon as the wallet was freezed, Khandelwal contacted Binance through email asking the reasons for suspension of wallet. The Binance representative responded saying that the ETH and USDT received on the wallet was stolen from Coineal wallet and wallet holder has reported about the incident.
On March 2, 2019 Khandelwal received an email from kamogawariver@outlook.com . The person who wrote the mail said “the China police is investigating your (Khandelwal) wallet and hence you have to return the entire sum to the individual from whom the digital currency was stolen.”
On the same day a person identified as Yucheng Zhong contacted Khandelwal through the Telegram application. Zhong reiterated that the money should be returned. Later Khandelwal and Zhong continued to chat to find a resolution. Zhong was the person who had filed a complaint with China police.
During the negotiation, presumably monitored by People’s Police, Zhong and Khandelwal mutually agreed to the 25:75 settlement. This means, Khandelwal will keep 25% and return 75% of stolen currency to Zhong.
Following this, Khandelwal wrote to Binance on March 6, 2019, citing this agreement and placed requests to defreeze the wallet to make the necessary transfer. The Binance allowed transfer of 11.2 Bitcoin which was equivalent to the value of 335 ETH and 45,375 USDT. The value of the currency was based on the 2019 market.
The SIT contacted Binance to confirm this incident. The Binance in response to SIT said “China police contacted our exchange in connection to this transfer.” Binance also confirmed the freezing, de-freezing of Khandelwal’s wallet and subsequent transfer of digital currency to Zhong’s wallet. The Binance requested the SIT to gather further details of China’s law enforcement agency.