Mumbai’s anti-extortion cell (AEC) arrested two youngsters on Thursday for allegedly harassing and threatening prominent builders in the city for money.
Mumbai’s anti-extortion cell (AEC) arrested two youngsters on Thursday for allegedly harassing and threatening prominent builders in the city for money.
From the last week of May 2016, a builder in the Kandivli area started receiving threat calls from mobile and local landline numbers. The caller introduced himself as Chote and demanded Rs 50 lakh. Later, the caller continuously threatened the builder and demanded the extortion amount, using different mobile numbers. The scared builder then lodged a complaint with the Mumbai crime branch.
AEC officers took up the matter immediately. “The complaint of extortion was registered at Kandivli police station on July 20 under IPC section 387. After proper analysis and strategising, a trap was laid at Nehru Road near Vile Parle (East). The complainant handed over Rs 25 lakh to two people who came to collect the money. The two were 23 and 20 years old. The police officers who laid the trap arrested the duo and seized the bag of money and their mobile phones,” said senior PI of the AEC Vinayak Vast.
It turned out that two years ago, the main accused was working as an office boy at the complainant’s office in Kandivli. He had then observed the complainant’s activities, and got to know several details about his business and family. After leaving that job, he had joined a courier company at Bandra, where he was working for the past few years. He got married in 2015 and started living with his wife at Versova. Recently, he was in dire need of money, because of which he hatched the plan to issue threats to the complainant and extort money from him. He was confident that the complainant would get scared and pay the money if he threatened to have his family killed. He entrusted his friend’s help to carry out this.
The police have now placed both of them under arrest.
