Mumbai: NGO worker arrested for extortion using stolen phone videos

The accused, Ahmad Khan alias Noor, a resident of Jogeshwari

Mumbai Crime Branch Unit 12 has arrested a man for allegedly demanding Rs 1 lakh in extortion from a mobile phone owner by threatening to make personal videos stored on the phone's memory card go viral. The accused, a resident of Jogeshwari, worked with an NGO and was also a police informer.

According to police sources, the complainant is a 25-year-old software engineer from Madhubani district, Bihar. He moved to Mumbai a couple of months ago to stay with his security guard father in a servant quarter in Jogeshwari East. The complainant had been studying at an IT college in Hyderabad and working as a delivery boy in Mumbai to support his family and ease the financial burden on his father.

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Speaking with mid-day, the complainant said, "I was working in Andheri last month. On July 3, around 11.30 am, two bike riders stole my mobile phone from my electric delivery bike while I was busy explaining to my colleague how to operate the delivery application. My bike was parked about 10 metres away when the two men snatched my phone and sped off. I didn't chase them because the speed of the electric bike wasn't high enough. I immediately went to Amboli police station and filed a complaint."

On July 26, while working on his laptop, the complainant received multiple calls from an unknown number. When he answered, the caller claimed to have found a memory card containing objectionable videos and demanded Rs 1 lakh, threatening to make the videos viral if he didn't comply. The caller asked to meet in person, and they met in Dahisar.

Their second meeting took place in Vakola on July 30, where the accused showed the complainant the videos and again demanded money. Since the complainant didn't have the full amount, he asked for ten days to gather it. The complainant, a software engineer, had developed software with his group that captures a picture of anyone attempting to unlock a stolen or lost phone and sends it along with the location to the owner's email.

When his phone was stolen, the accused tried to unlock it about 130 times, which led to several photos of the thief being sent to the complainant's email. He shared these images with Amboli police, who began searching for the suspect. The pictures did not match the accused who was demanding the money.

However, the memory card the accused gave him was not his. While the videos and photos on it were indeed his, the original memory card was 128 GB, whereas the one given to him was only 64 GB. The complainant took the 64 GB memory card and filed a complaint against the accused at Vanrai police station.

Acting on this information, Crime Branch Unit 12 officials arrested the accused from Jogeshwari on July 31 and handed him over to Vanrai police station for further investigation. The accused has been identified as Ahmad Khan alias Noor, a resident of Jogeshwari.

During interrogation, Khan revealed that he found the memory card on the road and, upon checking it on his phone, discovered several videos, along with the complainant's Aadhaar card and other documents. He then called the complainant, having obtained his mobile number from the Aadhaar card, said an officer from Crime Branch Unit 12.

Khan has been booked and arrested under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and was produced before the court, where he was remanded to police custody, according to another officer from Vanrai police station. Khan is employed with an NGO in Jogeshwari, the officer added.