Gurugram: Extortion calls in the name of gangsters were made from Pakistan, say cops

GURUGRAM: Police have busted an international gang that extorted businessmen and influential people in the city by using names of local gangsters.
The calls, police said, were made from Pakistan. Over the past one week, four members of the gang who would collect the extortion money, park it in accounts owned by poor and illiterate people and transfer it to Pakistan via Dubai have been arrested. The money would be transferred through hawala transactions.

The police are trying to trace links with another gang that was busted by the STF last month with the arrest of six persons. That gang had a similar modus operandi - threat calls were made from Pakistan, but only to MLAs and senior politicians, and the money routed through Dubai to Pakistan.
The second gang came under the scanner after a property dealer went to the police on July 30, alleging that he had received a WhatsApp call from a person who claimed to be a close associate of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, whose name is being linked with the murder of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala.
On August 13, a team led by sub-inspector Satya Prakash managed to arrest two of the gang members - Rhitik (19) and Gulshan (20) - from a hideout in the city. After sustained questioning, they spilled the beans on the other members. On Friday, two of their associates - Bunty (24) and Sandeep alias Sandy (20) - were nabbed.
The police have recovered 99 ATM cards, 62 SIM cards, 23 mobile phones and one bank passbook from their possession. One of these accounts belonged to a man from Bihar and transactions worth Rs 24 lakh were made in it in a month.
ACP (crime) Preet Pal Sangwan explained that the role of the four arrested gang members was limited to parking the extorted money in accounts owned by poor people and transferring it through hawala. "In this case, they had given Rs 25,000 to the man from Bihar and used his account for the transactions. We are trying to find out the details of more such accounts," Sangwan said.
These gang members kept 10% of the extorted amount and transferred the rest of the money to Pakistan. While scanning the seized phones, the police have found some Pakistani numbers and are trying to trace them.