Delhi: Man held for extortion, posing as tax official

A 42-year-old man was arrested by the Delhi Police Crime Branch for allegedly attempting to extort money from his acquaintances using international phone numbers and posing as an officer of the Sales Tax Department, police said.

"One Naval Kishore has been arrested after three persons alleged that they had been receiving text messages and videos on WhatsApp from an international number where the sender was claiming to be an official of the Sales Tax Department. The sender claimed that the complainants had committed tax irregularities by misdeclaration and not paying taxes," Alok Kumar, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) said.

The sender also sent images and videos of government files to establish his credentials as a government official. Later, he started demanding money from the complainants to "settle" the issue.

Police zeroed on the location of Kishor in west Delhi's Hari Nagar area and he was nabbed.

During interrogation, he confessed to his involvement in the crime. Later, the phone along with SIM used in the crime was recovered.

The application used for creating International Whatsapp number was found on his mobile. Besides this, various incriminating details were found in the mobile. It was found that the accused and the complainants were having a business connection.

One of the complainants is the owner of a firm that manufactures snacks and the remaining two complainants along with the accused person are distributors, said Kumar.