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Government will probe bitcoin scam, says Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge


The Karnataka government will order a probe into the Bitcoin scam and others that the Congress fought as the Opposition, the state’s new minister Priyank Kharge said Sunday.

“This is our sixth guarantee to the people,” he told ET. The probe team would take the help of cybercrime experts, go deep into the case and unearth big names involved in the scam, he said.

Kharge, who earlier handled the IT/BT portfolio, is one of the eight ministers who took oath in Bengaluru on Saturday. They are yet to get their portfolios.

A Bitcoin heist case made headlines two years ago after the Bengaluru City Police submitted a charge sheet before a local court naming Srikrishna alias Sriki and others as prime accused.

Kharge, as an opposition lawmaker, had sought to corner the BJP regime headed by Basavaraj Bommai and urged the government to disclose where the bitcoins were seized from. “Why was the mention of seized 31 Bitcoins of Rs 9 crore left out of the charge sheet?” he asked in a series of tweets, wondering how the hacker got bail even after hacking the government websites.

The accused hacked into three Bitcoin exchanges, 14 websites, including 10 poker websites, and exploited malware. “The total of which is not disclosed but is speculated to be around (Rs) 2283 crore. Why was this not informed to more competent authorities?” Kharge had said on the microblogging site.

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The Bengaluru Police had got wind of a much larger case involving the Bitcoin heist while investigating a case related to drug peddling in Karnataka, about three years ago.Police recruitment scam

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Kharge said the government will also take the police subinspector (PSI) recruitment scam to its logical conclusion by even facilitating the deposition of the jailed IPS officer before a judge.

“The youth are disillusioned with the system. If we don’t get them justice in due time, they will lose faith in the government. We will restore people’s faith in the government by inquiring into the scams we spoke about,” he said.

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