A day after Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma's personal secretary was arrested by UP Police in Noida for allegedly blackmailing her boss to extort Rs 20 crore in lieu of stolen personal data, the e-wallet giant has said that all its consumer data is protected with the "highest and most impenetrable levels of security".
"This is a case of personal data theft of Vijay Shekhar Sharma, where three arrests were made yesterday... At this point, the law enforcement authorities are investigating this matter and we would like to respect the police investigation, and not comment further until the results of such investigation are known," Paytm said in a statement.
Sonia Dhawan, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma's long-time personal secretary, was allegedly the mastermind of the extortion bid. Dhawan, who is with Paytm for the last 10 years, had access to Sharma's laptop, phone and office desktop.
Dhawan's Twitter bio says that she is Head Communications at Paytm, Paytm Mall and Paytm Money. "Hard work is glory, everything else is theory," her bio reads.
The three employees of the Noida-headquartered e-commerce and wallet firm were arrested late Monday afternoon by a team from the Sector 20 police station, while their fourth accomplice is still at large, a senior official said.
Dhawan's husband Roopak Jain and another Paytm employee Devnedra Kumar were allegedly involved in the blackmailing. The fourth accused, Rohit Chomal, is a resident of Kolkata and had allegedly made the extortion call to Sharma's brother Ajay Shekhar Sharma.
The owner of Paytm had made a complaint with the police that their employees, a woman and her aides, had stolen some data from the company and were blackmailing. They were demanding Rs 20 crore for not leaking it, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ajay Pal Sharma said.
Taking immediate action on it, an FIR was registered and three persons, including the woman, arrested. They are being probed about the data and their modus operandi. Police will share the facts as they are unearthed, Sharma said.
The SSP said they will seek their custody to interrogate them further and gather more details. Police were not clear as to what kind of data was stolen. He said that the local police are in touch with their counterparts in Kolkata to track down Chomal, who allegedly made the extortion call to Sharma's brother.
The FIR was registered at Sector 20 police station and the accused were booked under Indian Penal Code sections 381 (theft by clerk or servant of property in possession of master), 384 (extortion), 386 (extortion by putting a person in fear of death or grievous hurt), 420 (cheating), 408 (Criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant) and 120 B (party to a criminal conspiracy).
Charges under the provisions of the Information Technology Act have also been pressed against the accused, the police said. When contacted, Paytm confirmed in a statement that the Noida Police have arrested three people, including one female employee of Paytm, in the case of extortion. The employee along with two other accomplices attempted to extort money from Vijay Shekhar Sharma on the pretext of leaking his personal data. We are standing by our colleagues till the police enquiry reaches its meaningful conclusion, the company said.
With PTI Inputs