2 from Telangana, Gujarat held for sending threat mails to Mukesh Ambani

According to personnel of Gamdevi police station, the 19-year-old has been identified as Ganesh Ramesh Vanaparthi who sent a threatening email demanding Rs 500 crore at around 10.32 am on November 1. Vanaparthi was produced before a local court and remanded in police custody till November 8.

Confirming the developmen,t a senior police officer said, “It appears that it is a mischief committed by the teenager. Our investigation is underway.”

Police said that Vanaparthi was traced with the help of the IP address of the email ID. A team was sent to his location at SR University in Warangal and he was detained. Police checked his mobile phone following which a mail demanding Rs 500 crore that was sent from his personal email was recovered.

“The mail had been deleted from his Sent folder and we recovered it from his Trash folder,” police informed the court on Saturday. Vanaparthi’s mobile phone and laptop have been seized, they said.
The second accused, identified as Rajveer Khant, was arrested by the Mumbai Crime Branch. The police said that the accused is a BCom graduate from Gujarat and traced with the help of technical analysis.

“We have arrested a Gujarat-based man who was handling shadabkhan@mailfence.com and sending threat emails to the industrialist,” a senior police official from the Mumbai Crime Branch said.

The investigators further added that Khant is a tech-savvy individual and has committed the crime “just for fun” as in one of the emails, the accused even challenged the Mumbai police to catch him.
“He had written ‘catch me if you can,’ in one of the emails, while our investigation has revealed that he had also sent one such email to another businessman,” said an officer. Khant was produced in court late Saturday and remanded in police custody till November 8.

The police believe two more individuals are involved in the crime. A computer, hard disk and two mobile phones belonging to Khant has also been seized, said police.

The first threat mail allegedly sent to Ambani on October 27 by one Shadab Khan reads, “If you (Ambani) do not give us Rs 20 crore, we will kill you, we have the best shooters in India.”

Subsequently, the chairman and MD of Reliance Industries received another email, in which the sender alleged that as they had failed to act upon the first email, they wanted Rs 200 crore.

“If the demands are not fulfilled, a death warrant will be issued (to Ambani),” the second email reads.

On Monday, it was reported that the extortionist had sent a third email to Ambani’s official email ID demanding Rs 400 crore. He then received three more such emails on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“While all the other emails were sent from shadabkhan@ mailfence.com, one of the recent emails was sent from a Gmail account, ganeshvanaparthi91@ gmail.com,” an officer said.