Man tries to extort ₹5L in Bitcoin, held
GURUGRAM: Faridabad police arrested a 25-year-old on Saturday who threatened a resident of killing his son, and asked for ₹5 lakh in Bitcoin to be transferred to a cryptocurrency wallet.
Ashok Kumar, a resident of Sector 17, Faridabad, complained to the police about receiving threatening calls, texts, and emails by an unidentified person who was demanding him to pay ₹5 lakh in Bitcoin. “We formed a team of the Sector 48 crime unit, and the investigation was handed over to sub-inspector Rakesh Singh Sehrawat,” said Narender Kadian, DCP (crime).
A case under sections 384 (extortion), 506 (criminal intimidation), 419 (cheating by personation),420 (fraud), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using forged document), 120B (conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at SGM Nagar police station on May 13.
Kumar received an email on May 10, asking him to transfer ₹5 lakh to a cryptocurrency wallet within 24 hours, failing which his son will be killed.
“They threatened that if I did not transfer the money, they would shoot my son. They also threatened to kidnap my son, and said that I will have to pay a ransom of ₹1 crore. They said it would be wiser to transfer ₹5 lakh to their cryptocurrency wallet in Bitcoin to prevent the hassle,” he said. According to Kadian, police teams questioned more than 50 people. Based on technical and human intelligence, they arrested Sandeep Kumar, one of the extortionists, who hailed from Bihar.
“Sandeep ran a photocopy shop in Ghaziabad between 2013 and 2022. He used to forge identity cards and issued SIM cards against them. He was arrested in 2020 and 2021, and spent a few months behind bars,” Kadian said. Sandeep confessed to the crime during questioning.
“He wanted to become rich overnight and didn’t want to work. He used to daydream and planned to extort money by threatening businessmen in Faridabad, Palwal and Gurugram,” Kadian added.
“Sandeep got a new SIM card with an Aadhaar card provided by his accomplice Ankit. The SIM was used to demand ransom in the case,” Sehrawat said.