TV-Inspired Brothers Threaten Businessman To Cover Lockdown Loss: Delhi Cops

Inspired by a crime series on television, two brothers allegedly tried to extort Rs 2 crore from a factory owner to make up for the financial losses they had suffered due to because nationwide COVID-19 lockdown, the Delhi Police said after their arrest.

The accused, identified as Devender Singh, 41, and Ravinder Singh, 37, are both businessmen and were arrested with the help of technical surveillance, they said.

The 40-year-old owner of a household appliances factory in Haryana filed a complaint with the police of July 14 after receiving repeated calls from a person who identified himself as Bhakhtawar and demanded Rs 2 crore from him by threatening him, the complaint showed.

One of the accused knew the owner of the factory in Haryana's Bahadurgarh since he used to supply components to the factory in, the police said.

The police found the mobile number used to make the extortion calls and found that it belonged to a person who told the police that he had lost his wallet along with his documents a year ago and was unaware of the number registered to his name, Anto Alphonse, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) said, adding, the extortion calls were made from different locations.

The police traced the accused with the help of technical surveillance and arrested them after they confessed to the crime, Mr Alphonse said.

"One of the accused, Ravinder, disclosed that during the lockdown, he suffered financial losses. Though his brother Devender has his own work, even he faced losses. So, taking cues from a TV crime series, they planned to make quick money," Mr Alphonse said.

The two brothers then procured a new SIM card and made the extortion calls from the new number and used a fake name to execute their plan. They kept changing their location while making the calls and threatened the factory owner to arrange Rs 2 crore, he said.

The mobile phones used to commit the crime have been recovered from the two accused, the police said.