Driver records drunken confession of employer’s affairs, blackmails him

The live-in couple’s ordeal began in August this year when the man’s driver, who stays in the same building, called up the woman and told her that he had a recording of the man confessing to sleeping with her three daughters.

Navi Mumbai: The Taloja police are on the lookout for a driver who secretly recorded a drunken ‘confession’ of his employer about his alleged illicit relationship with the daughters of his live-in partner. Threatening to send the recording to the daughters’ husbands, the driver blackmailed both the employer and his live-in-partner and extorted a sum of ₹10.70 lakh. When the blackmail continued despite paying him money, the live-in partner registered an FIR with the Taloja police.

The 45-year-old woman has been living with the 55-year-old businessman ever since her husband abandoned her for another woman. She has four daughters aged 27, 25, 23 and 19, of which the eldest two are married. The third girl stays with her mother and her live-in partner while the youngest is studying in another city.

The live-in couple’s ordeal began in August this year when the man’s driver, who stays in the same building, called up the woman and told her that he had a recording of the man confessing to sleeping with her three daughters. He demanded ₹10 lakh for withholding the audio recording from her sons-in-law. The woman then called up her live-in partner, who confessed that he too was being blackmailed by the driver. He told her that while on outstation work, his driver had got him drunk and made him say negative things about her and her daughters, which were recorded without his knowledge.

The driver involved a friend of his in the blackmail deal and the businessman paid them around ₹10.70 lakh in three instalments. “He transferred ₹70,000 and ₹4 lakh to the bank account of the driver and his friend respectively and paid ₹6 lakh in cash to the driver,” said senior police inspector Jitendra Sonawane from Taloja police station. “Despite the businessman paying this huge amount, the driver demanded ₹6 lakh more from the woman in return for not sending the recording to her sons-in-law. Fed up, she approached us and lodged an FIR. The driver and his friend are absconding, and our team is trying to trace them.”