he anti-extortion cell of the Mumbai police has arrested a couple who allegedly blackmailed a middle-aged, married bank employee and extorted as much as Rs 47 lakh from him.
Police officials said Vicky Sarvesh Garg alias Vikas Gupta alias Javed (35) and his live-in partner, Shilpa Jadhav alias Shilpa Garg (25) were in touch with the victim since February 2015. Vicky, who is from Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, came to the city a year ago while Shilpa is a local Mumbai girl. They stay in Vasai area.
In February 2015, Shilpa met the victim near Marine Lines station and took his mobile number expressing urgency to make a call. Two days later, she called him to ask him how to open an account in his bank and met him nearby for coffee. Within a week, Shilpa, along with Vicky, met the victim and demanded Rs 50,000 from him for befriending Shilpa. Vicky threatened the victim that he would defame him if he did not cough up the money.
A few days later, Shilpa and Vicky visited the Kalbadevi bank branch where the victim works and demanded Rs 3 lakh from him, saying Shilpa is pregnant because of him. The victim resisted saying he had not done anything. However, as Shilpa was adamant, he agreed to pay. On April 4 last year, Vicky called the victim telling him that as the pregnancy was at a more advanced stage than expected, they could not abort the child and demanded compensation of Rs 10 lakh from him. On April 23, they extracted another Rs 10,000 from him. Two months later, Vicky informed the victim that Shilpa was going to the police and if he did not want her to do so, he should pay Rs 80 lakh to them. In this manner, the couple managed to extort Rs 47 lakh from him.
Officials from the crime branch laid a trap for Vicky and Shilpa on Friday when they came to extort Rs 3 lakh from the victim and arrested them. The duo was produced in court and remanded to custody till January 11. Further investigation in the case is underway.
