Noida: 35-year-old arrested for extorting money while pretending to be govt official

Noida: A 35-year-old man was nabbed by the Noida police Saturday night for allegedly extorting money from a businessman while pretending to be a senior official

Noida: A 35-year-old man was nabbed by the Noida police Saturday night for allegedly extorting money from a businessman while pretending to be a senior official of the government and threatening him that he would send the victim to prison as he “knew” other senior government officials.

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The suspect was identified as Ankit Dwivedi. He is from Kannauj district in Uttar Pradesh and lived in a rented accommodation in Sector 53.

According to the police, a complaint was filed against him by a man named Rajveer Singh, a departmental store owner, who alleged that the suspect had been extorting ₹40,000 monthly from him for the past six months and had also taken expensive liquor bottles from him. Based on his complaint, a case of extortion and cheating had been registered at the Sector 58 police station.

“Two of the complainants’ sons are history sheets with cases against them under the Narcotics Drugs Act. It seems the suspect was threatening him as well that he’ll send him to prison, in order to extort money from the victim,” said Rajesh S, deputy commissioner of police, zone 1.

Police officers said the complaint alleged that the suspect allegedly claimed to be acquainted with senior government officials and often used that to intimidate the victim.

Dwivedi allegedly had a Honda Civic car on which there were fake government department stickers, said the police. He also claimed to be a frequent guest at a five star hotel located under the Sector 58 police jurisdiction and would often meet the victim in that area to show that he was really living there.

The suspect was nabbed from in Sector 55 near the hotel at 11.50pm, hours after he had allegedly taken ₹10,000 from the victim, the police said. The money and the car were recovered, along with gold jewellery and an expensive wrist watch, the police added.

The suspect also writes a social media blog, said officers.

“He would specifically target people with some criminal background in order to threaten and intimidate them, while pretending to be a government official who knew other government officials. We are verifying his criminal history from other districts as well to determine how many other people he duped. We are also finding out his bank account details to gather more information,” said the DCP.

The suspect was produced before a magistrate and later sent to jail.