Bengaluru: Four months after the `extortion racket' within the state anti-corruption body -- Lokayukta broke out, the Karnataka Lokayukta has confirmed that IPS officer and Lokayukta former SP Srinath Joshi was involved in the racket and he would be the accused No 2, in the case.
In a letter to the Karnataka Chief Secretary Shalini Rajaneesh, the Lokayukta ADGP has enclosed the detailed investigation report with the letter and has sought disciplinary action against Srinath Joshi, who had invested the extorted money in crypto currency and parked it in Dubai.
The entire episode came to light when Srinath Joshi was working as Lokayukta SP 1, who was in charge of investigations. However, another IPS officer Vamshi Krishna, who was Lokayukta 2 grew suspicious over the way the information about raids would be leaked to the corrupt government officials. Vamshi Krishna started tracking Ningappa, a dismissed police constable, who frequented Lokayukta office.
Ningappa was regularly in touch with Srinath Joshi, who used to leak the information about Lokayukta raids on corrupt bureaucrats and extort money from them. Then, he used to invest that money in crypto currency in Dubai. Apart from Srinath Joshi, Ningappa was in touch with many officials, who were working in key ministries. He handled their money also.
The Lokayukta technical wing arrested Ningappa when he came to meet Srinath Joshi at the office and started investigation. During the interrogation, Ningappa revealed that Joshi used to feed him with the information on the offices that would be raided by Lokayukta in near future and he would leak the news and extort money from them.
The Lokayukta transferred Joshi with immediate effect and ADGP himself started continuing with the investigation. In his letter to the Chief Secretary, Lokayukta ADGP has stated that more evidence and witnesses and details need to be collected, but prima-facie findings against Joshi are serious in nature and Joshi was involved with Ningappa.
The letter stated that 24 crypto wallets were found on Ningappa's phone, where Rs 4.92 crore was invested in crypto currency in 13 crypto wallets.
The WhatsApp chats have revealed that Joshi and Ningappa conspired to threaten government officials on possession of disproportionate assets and extorted money from them. Of the three mobile phones Joshi produced when he appeared before the investigation officer, two were sent to Cyber Crime police attached to the CID and another phone was sent to National Forensic Science University in Gujarat for analysis since it was damaged.Retrieval of data is still pending and the report is awaited and further investigation will be carried out after the data is retrieved, the letter added.
