A 37-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly extorting money from taxi drivers on the pretext of recovering instalments against their car loan, the police said on Saturday.
The accused — Bijender alias Lala — has been found to be involved in two previous robbery incidents, they said.
The matter came to fore on Friday when a taxi driver from New Usmanpur registered a complaint with the police. He had purchased a second-hand commercial car one-and-a-half years ago for ₹1,30,000. On Thursday, when he was taking a passenger to RML Hospital and was passing by the ISBT at Kashmere Gate, his car was intercepted by another car.
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One of the passengers from the other car approached the complainant and said he had defaulted on his car loan. On the pretext of sorting out the matter, the accused asked the complainant to sit in their vehicle.
They took the victim to Uttar Pradesh while another accomplice took his car and followed them.
The accused told the cab driver that he had not paid the instalments and his vehicle would be confiscated. They even threatened to beat him up with a bat and asked for money, a senior officer said. The complainant transferred ₹15,000 to a Paytm account after which the accused dropped him along with his vehicle in Noida.
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However, the complainant later found out that the loan amount was already cleared by the car’s previous owner.
DCP (North) Anto Alphonse said: “We got details of the Paytm account in which the extorted money was transferred. We also identified the suspect and the vehicle used in the crime. Bijender was arrested and his car was seized.”
The police recovered ₹10,000 from the accused and efforts are being made to nab his accomplices. During interrogation, the accused disclosed that he used to work for recovery agencies.