Mumbai: A private detective and his wife have been arrested on Friday for allegedly demanding Rs 1 crore from a suspended IAS officer.
A private detective has been arrested for allegedly extorting Rs 1 crore from a suspended IAS officer of Maharashtra, a senior police officer said here on Friday.
Parambir Singh Police Commissioner (Thane) told the media, “A private detective and his wife were arrested by the Thane Anti-Extortion Cell on Thursday from a rented flat in Dombivli town. We have recovered two laptops, 15 CDs, five mobile handsets, four pen-drives, and other incriminating documents from their home”.
The arrested person Satish Sakharam Mangle along with his second wife Shraddha was caught red handed accepting the extortion amount from their residence in Dombivali by a police decoy team on Thursday.
Satish who reportedly runs a private detective agency extorted ten crores from Maharashtra State Roads Development Corporation vice-chairman & managing director Radheshyam Mopalwar.
He settled for 7 crores after negotiations with Radheshaym.
Speaking of the incident Singh said, “They even threatened him on October 31 at a five-star hotel in Mumbai that if he (Mopalwar) failed to pay up the Rs 70 million extortion amount, they would hire a criminal gang to eliminate him and his daughter, Tanvi”.
Speaking of the extortion money the Commissioner revealed the details of the case. He said that the case dates back to August 1 and is an alleged corruption matter. The arrested persons were blackmailing the Radheshyam to extort money from him.
CM Devendra Fadnavis suspended Radhesyam after the extortionists grafted a sting operation against him of his alleged corrupt deals.
On October 23 the arrested extortionists and one of their associate Anil Vedmehta through Radheshyam’s friend Kling Mishra called him to a near by hotel around the Kharegaon Toll Plaza on the Mumbai-Nashik highway. They demanded Rs 10 crore from him for withdrawing all the alleged complaints of corruption along with handing over all the audio tape recordings to him.
He did agree to pay an amount of Rs 1 crore to the extortionists in Thane. He then lodged a complaint against the culprits in Thane Police station.
Thane police had then laid a trap to nab the extortionists red-handed taking the money. The money was delivered by a plain clothed police team.
The arrested extortionists at first stated that they were acting as mediator between Radheshyam and his (ex)-wife’s divorces and took advantage of his personal relations with the suspended bureaucrat.
Last year, through an associate, Mangle had alleged demanded Rs 56 lakh from Mopalwar at the MSRDC office in Bandra and a complaint was lodged with the local police.
Commissioner Singh said that Mangle was a SSC pass and later drop-out of a diploma course in computers after which he launched his own private detective agency. He had developed contacts with senior government officers and was adept at recording telephone calls which he used for his rackets.
Mangle has been booked under various IPC sections, besides a case registered against him with the Bandra Police under the IT Act, and a rape case with Mira Road (Thane) Police.