Punjab Police bust extortion racket linked to gangster Lawrence Bishnoi

Chandigarh, May 31 (IANS) Punjab Police have busted an extortion racket, backed by gangster Lawrence Bishnoi, with the arrest of its three operatives, said Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav here on Wednesday.

Those arrested have been identified as Rohit Bharadwaj of Zirkapur and Mohit Bharadwaj and Arjun Thakur, both of Chandigarh.

DGP Yadav said following a detailed investigation and intelligence-gathering in this case, the State Special Operation Cell of Mohali had initiated coordinated action which led to the arrest of these three persons found involved in operating an extortion racket.

Police have also recovered cash amounting to Rs 14.78 lakh from the possession of Rohit Bhardwaj and other incriminating evidence from the mobile phones recovered from accused persons.

Divulging details about modus-operandi, the DGP said the arrested persons were using online gambling platform 'Diamond Exchange' to lure victims by convincing them to join online gaming and betting on a nominal fee to gain great profits.

"After winning some rewards, the victim would start to lose money in betting and then accused persons would offer money on credit starting from lakhs," he said, adding once the victim avail the credit, the accused used to charge hefty interest on the amount, which could sometimes accumulated to crores of rupees.

DGP Yadav said when the victim showed unwillingness to return the money, the offenders would make threatening calls to them through their gangster associates sitting in jails and abroad.

During investigation, the police verified various payment gateways and the bank accounts to which the money was transferred, he said, adding proceedings to freeze the bank accounts linked to the activities of the accused have been initiated.

Investigations are on to identify the owner of the fraudulent website and location from where they are operating them, he added.