The Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which took over the probe into the alleged bitcoin scam from the Central Crime Branch (CCB) recently, has now filed a complaint on the Investigating Officers (IOs) of the case for allegedly tampering with the evidence.
The Cottonpet police have registered an FIR against the former IOs of the case and other unidentified individuals under Section 204 for destruction of evidence and 120(B) for criminal conspiracy.
The FIR accessed by The Hindu shows the CID official has complained that the Forensics Science Laboratory (FSL) report of the mirror images of two pendrives, a hard disc and an Apple MacBook were tampered with and new files added after they were seized from the accused in November-December 2020.
It can be recalled that the CCB police arrested three youths in a case related to procuring drugs from the dark web and their interrogation had led them to arrest Sri Krishna alias Sreeki, a hacker who claimed to have hacked several global bitcoin exchanges. When he was in custody, stolen bitcoins of the Bitfinex exchange were flagged to have been moved, triggering allegations of stolen bitcoins being swindled from the hacker by top functionaries of the then government.
While CID officials are tightlipped on the implications of the FSL report that new files were added after the devices were seized, sources said that this may indicate new transactions while they were in the custody of the police.
The Congress, which was in Opposition then, had made allegations against the then BJP government. Once it came to power recently, it handed over the probe into the alleged scam to the CID. When CID took over the case in July 2023, the papers handed over to it included a FSL report dated February 20, 2023 which indicated tampering of these devices recovered from the accused. Based on this report Cottonpet police have now filed a complaint and registered a FIR against CCB officials.
