2 Odisha brothers pose as ED officers and extort money from government officials; Arrested

Two brothers posed as Enforcement Directorate officers and extorted money from government officials in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district, police said.

Odisha News: Two men-brothers were arrested by the police Dhenkanal District by Odisha for allegedly extorting money from government officials by posing a Enforcement Directorate officers.

A senior official said on Sunday that the two suspects, identified as Tarinisen Mohapatra (30) and Brahmashankar Mohapatra (27), were arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) of Odisha Police on Saturday from their home town Dhenkanal, they said.

According to police, the accused brothers had borrowed a large amount of money but were unable to repay the lenders. So, they hatched a plan to defraud government employees by posing as ED officers.

Giving details, an official said the brothers had contacted around 300 officers of various government departments in the state while posing as “Additional Director of ED Bhubaneswar”. The suspects were successful in extorting money from some government officials, the official said, adding that police have traced a total of Rs 16 lakh in payments so far.

“They have managed to extort money from some officers and a total of payments of over Rs 16 lakh have been traced. They took payments through PhonePe and GPay, and sent fake ‘clearance letters’ to the officers, clearing all ‘charges’, the official said.

The matter came to light after Chhatrapur sub-collector Debadatta Mohanta filed a police complaint, leading to an investigation that exposed the fraud, an STF official said.

The officer said a case was registered against the suspect based on the government official’s complaint and the brothers were subsequently arrested.

A laptop, a desktop, five mobile phones, passbooks and checkbooks, fake identity cards and 17 ATMs were seized from the suspects, police said.

Further investigation into the case is underway, they said.

(With PTI inputs)