A cyber crime extortion racket has come to light in Narmada district of Gujarat, revealing that police personnel entrusted with preventing cyber crimes were themselves misusing legal procedures to freeze and unfreeze bank accounts for extortion. This comes 1.5 years after a similar police scam was uncovered in Junagadh.
The latest case involves Lakshman Chaudhary, a computer operator at the Rajpipla Cyber Crime police station, who had been emailing banks for months to freeze and unfreeze accounts, allegedly misusing legal procedures to extort money from account holders.
In early 2024, a similar scandal in Junagadh led to the arrest of DySP Taral Bhatt and his team for freezing and unfreezing 335 bank accounts illegally to extort money, exposing a systemic misuse of cybercrime procedures within the police force.
Sources indicate that in both cases, small amounts were deposited into suspicious bank accounts by middlemen, who would then file fraudulent complaints to trigger account freezes.
Police would then contact the account holders, demanding money to unfreeze the accounts, effectively running an organised extortion network in the name of cybercrime prevention.
The revelations have raised serious concerns about corruption within Gujarat’s police system, with calls growing for a statewide investigation to dismantle these extortion networks that reportedly involve large sums of money.
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