She told friends she had access to her grandma’s bank account...and then the blackmail started

When a 15-year-old schoolgirl in Gurugram told her friends about her grandmother’s bank account, she didn’t know it would lead to eight months of blackmail, an extortion racket and her family losing Rs 80 lakh.It all started in February 2024. The victim, a Class IX student studying in sector 10 in Gurugram used to manage internet banking on her grandmother’s account. The grandmother had recently sold a plot of land and received Rs 80 lakh into the account.When the teen mentioned this account to her friends in school, word got around and eventually reached a boy in Class X. This boy then told his elder brother about the girl and her bank account, who then hatched a plot to get his hands on the money.The insidious plan medium119540154The elder brother got a group of his friends together and one of them, 20-year-old Sumit Kataria, befriended the girl on social media.Kataria accessed some of the girl’s photographs and morphed them. He then threatened to circulate the photographs on social media if she didn’t pay up.Terrified, the girl first paid Rs 1 lakh, hoping the blackmail would stop. But it didn’t. “Every few weeks, the blackmailer would return with a fresh demand. They had given her multiple account numbers, and she would transfer the money online,” said Inspector Rambir Singh, Station House Officer at the Sector 10 police station in Gurugram.He added that the blackmailers only took Rs 1 lakh at a time from the victim and spent most of the money on partying.Eight months later, there was no money left in the girl’s grandmother’s account. The blackmailers grew desperate. One of them, 28-year-old Naveen Kumar, went to the girl’s tuition class, where he threatened her.That’s when the girl’s teacher noticed something was wrong. He spoke to her and the girl confided in him about the blackmail, the money and the bank account. The teacher informed the girl’s family. The girl’s grandmother filed a police complaint on December 21, 2024, and the next day, the cops arrested three people.The girl studies in a private school and her father works in Delhi. medium119540097 medium nocaption119547727Eight arrests in four monthsInitially, six people were arrested in the case, but new details revealed two other accused who had extorted the girl by posing as police officials.The seventh accused was identified as Fardeen (23), a resident of Jakh village in Nuh, who had posed as an SHO and extorted Rs 2 lakh from the girl. He was arrested on March 17. On March 21, cops arrested the eighth accused, Liyaqat (25) from Lohinga Khurd village in Nuh.The accused have been identified as Amit Kumar (28), Naveen Kumar (28), Kushal Kumar (22) and Sumit Kataria (20) from Hayatpur, Sumit Tanwar (20) from Gurugram, Sonu (22), Fardeen (23) and Liyaqat (25) from Nuh.The mastermind behind the plan, the Class X boy’s elder brother, is yet to be arrested.The police recovered Rs 5 lakh and a debit card from Naveen, Rs 20.5 lakh from Sumit Kataria, Rs 8.5 lakh from Sumit Tanwar, Rs 4.5 lakh from Amit, and Rs 1.5 lakh from Fardeen.