Extortion racket busted: Trio arrested for faking IDs of top officials

Mangalore Today News Network

Bhatkal, Dec 15, 2014: Three notorious criminals have been arrested by the police on serious charges of extorting money from the public after producing fake Ids of officials of top agencies like Lokayukta and Customs.

Those arrested are Mohammad Ashfaq from Bhatkal, Raghavendra from Belake and Afrahim from Murdershwar. Of the three Ashfaq is said to be the kingpin of this extortion racket.  The trio has been taken to Mumbai for interrogation.

It has been gathered that  Ashfaq was first arrested by the Mumbai police at the airport for using a fake ID. The other two were arrested on the basis of the revelations made by him during interrogation.

The prime accused Ashfaq  was said to be wanted in connection with several cases and had once earlier arrested by the Manki police for extorting money from those transporting gold after producing fake Ids of revenue intelligence sleuths. It is learnt, Ashfaq had  initially fooled the Manki cops themselves by  posing a revenue intelligence official but was later trapped when his true colour came to light.

After his release he had used fake ID of Lokayukta officials  to carry out his nefarious activities in Murdeshwar where he used to trap gold smugglers and extract money from them. He was arrested even in this case too.

His arrest in Mumbai airport too was dramatic as Ashfaq with the help of his four accomplices had posed himself as a customs official and had managed to grab 100 grams of gold and Rs 15,800 cash from one Rehmatullah who arrived from Dubai with gold. However, Ashfaq was later trapped when he tried to flee while his accomplices escaped.