Man who extorted ₹1.95 crore from city-based shipping firm booked

Police have booked a former engineer with a ship management company who allegedly blackmailed and extorted ₹1.97 crore from the firm’s managing director after threatening to send a video of one of the vessels, manned by it, discharging untreated sewage water in the United States territorial waters to that country’s coast guard.

The accused, identified as Mohit Joshi from Almora in Uttarakhand, is yet to be arrested, a police officer from Marine Drive police station said.

The complainant is the 56-year-old managing director of the firm that has its headquarters in Churchgate. “The firm is four decades old and holds a licence for crew management in merchant vessels. It also has offices in Delhi and Singapore,” the officer said.

According to the complainant, he got a call from an unknown number in June 2022, which was later identified to be that of Joshi. He said the vessel he was deployed on violated international law as it released untreated sewage water while heading to the US from Mexico, the managing director said.

“Joshi threatened the complainant that a video of the illegal discharge would be handed over to the United States coast guard if the latter didn’t pay him $250,000 (approximately ₹1.97 crore) and there would be legal trouble for the firm. The complainant accordingly transferred the money from their Singapore bank account to the account of the accused in Uttarakhand,” the police officer said.

However, a few days later, he again got a call from Joshi. This time, he demanded another $300,000, the complainant said and added that since he was not happy paying the accused the first time, he decided to approach the police.

“Though the incident occurred in June and July last year, we had frozen his bank accounts immediately and were taking legal opinion if we could register the offence in Mumbai. We booked Joshi on Sunday night as he threatened and blackmailed the complaint when he was in the city. The complainant’s father had established the company, and it holds good reputation in the maritime industry,” the police officer added.

A case under section 384 (punishment for extortion) and 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered against Joshi.