Bengaluru: A youth, who extorted money from rich businessmen by claiming to be an officer from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), has finally landed in Central Crime Branch's (CCB) net.
The CCB sleuths arrested 34-year-old Abhilash, a resident of Annasandrapalya, near HAL. The police recovered Rs 24 lakh cash and a high-end Benz car from him.
His modus operandi was to find businessmen who owned big properties and extort money from them by threatening to book them for possessing illegal properties. The police are probing if his friend Raghav Reddy too was involved in the cheating racket by giving him leads on the businessmen.
The police said that two friends Vijay Kumar and Vijay Reddy, who were into software development, needed about Rs 50 crore for development of softwares and were looking for people who could lend them money. They met Raghav Reddy who asked them to meet Abhilash saying he could help them.
The duo called up Abhilash and explained their project to him. When Abhilash asked them for surety, the duo said that they have properties across Bengaluru which he could take for surety.
He called the two for a meeting at a luxury hotel. When they reached the hotel, Abhilash told them that he was a CBI officer and threatened to book them for possessing illegal properties worth crores. As a settlement, he demanded Rs 1 crore but lowered it to Rs 24 lakh.
The victims asked a day’s time to hand over the money. The next day when Abhilash arrived in his Benz car, the two got suspicious and took photos of the car and its registration number.
They approached the CCB and filed a complaint following which Abhilash was arrested. The police seized Rs 24 lakh and two Mercedes Benz cars from him.
During the investigation it was found that he had cheated several people claiming to be a CBI officer. Further investigation is underway.
