The Anti Corruption Bureau has arrested Sahil Rajput, grandson of ex-MLA and BJP leader Radheshyam from Sriganganagar, for allegedly impersonating a senior officer of Anti-Corruption Bureau and extorting money worth Rs 1.5 lakh.
This was an international spoof call gang, who used to blackmail government officials using software, posing as ACB officers.
Rajpal was the mastermind of this gang and was arrested for extorting money from the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) officials by threatening to implicate them in an ongoing ACB inquiry, ANI reported.
Rajput reportedly made spoof calls to officials of PHED and SPML and promised to 'settle' their cases with the ACB if they paid him Rs 10 lakh.
He impersonated Shankar Dutt Sharma, SP, ACB through caller-ID spoofing with the help of a website called the crazycall.net, reported the Times of India.
crazycall.net is a spoof call application/website through which the user can change his/her caller ID. The caller ID thus displayed on the receiver's phone is of the person the user selects. The app also allows the user to alter his voice, increasing his chances of remaining obscure.
The website is usually used to carry on pranks or for 'fooling your friends'.
Rajput however, used it for a different purpose.
He used Sharma's number to be displayed as the caller- ID to extort money from PHED and SPML officials who were already under the radar of the ACB.
"The accused had used the number of Shankar Dutt Sharma, SP, ACB. Thus, whenever he called an officer, Sharma's number reflected on his phone. Sharma was unaware that someone was using his number illegally," the Times of India quoted Sachin Mittal, inspector general of police, ACB as saying.
