Indian man faces jail, caning over bid to extort bank

Singapore, Oct 3 (IANS) A 35-year-old Indian national faces a jail term of 2-5 years and caning over his bid to extort half a million dollars from Standard Chartered Bank in Singapore, the media reported on Wednesday.

According to court papers, Nagarajan Balajee had allegedly threatened to publish a libel concerning Aalishaan Zaidi, 47, the global head of digital banking at Standard Chartered Bank, unless he paid 500,000 Singapore dollars, the Straits Times reported.

Zaidi was one of a few bank employees who received the threatening e-mails sent anonymously. He earlier made a police report on the bank’s behalf.

The Indian man was arrested on Sunday and several laptops as well as mobile phones were seized from him in connection with the case, the report said.

According to the daily, the bank had made a police report last Thursday about how it had been threatened with a leakage of confidential information. Balajee was believed to have used multiple fictitious e-mail accounts to deliver the threats anonymously.

Preliminary investigations by the police also found that the suspect might have used overseas-registered mobile lines and virtual private network services to mask his identity to evade detection. A VPN allows unauthorised content from overseas to be accessed by users.

Balajee is out on bail and due to appear in court on October 30.