Noida Police on Monday arrested three Paytm employees, including a woman, for trying to extort Rs 20 crore from the e-wallet giant’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma after threatening to leak stolen personal data and confidential information about his company.
According to Ajay Pal, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Gautam Buddh Nagar, those arrested are Sharma’s woman secretary (identity withheld), her husband Roopak Jain, a resident of Sector-120, Noida, and another Paytm employee Devendra Kumar, a resident of Shahdara village near Gautam Budh Nagar. The trio had threatened to leak the data and misuse the information to cause the firm loss and dent its public image, officials said.
“The trio had threatened to leak the data and misuse the information to cause the firm loss and dent its public image. These three employees of the Noida-headquartered e-commerce and wallet firm were arrested by a team from the Sector 20 police station, while the fourth accused is still at large,” said the SSP.
“The owner of Paytm had made a complaint with the police that their employees, a woman and her aides, had stolen some data from the company and were blackmailing him. They were demanding Rs 20 crore for not leaking it,” said the SSP.
“Taking immediate action, an FIR was registered and three persons, including the woman, arrested. They are being probed about the data and their modus operandi. Police will share the facts as they are unearthed,” said the SSP.
The FIR was registered at Sector 20 police station and the accused were booked under Indian Penal Code sections 381 (theft by clerk or servant of property in possession of master), 384 (extortion), 386 (extortion by putting a person in fear of death or grievous hurt), 420 (cheating), 408 (Criminal breach of trust by clerk or servant) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).
Charges under the provisions of the Information Technology Act have also been pressed against the accused, the police said. When contacted, Paytm confirmed in a statement that Noida Police have arrested three people, including one female employee of Paytm, in the case of extortion.