Singapore: Indian national faces 2-5 years jail-term, caning for extortion
A court in Singapore charged a 35-year-old Indian national who tried to extort half-a-million Singapore dollars from a bank. Nagarajan Balajee faces a jail term of 2-5 years and caning under a charge of "attempting to commit extortion." Balajee had allegedly threatened to publish a defamatory libel concerning Aalishaan Zaidi, the global-head of digital banking at Standard Chartered Bank, unless he paid SGD 500,000.
Bank employees received anonymous threatening calls
Zaidi (47) was one of the few bank employees who received the anonymous e-mails that carried serious threats. He approached the police on behalf of the bank last week reporting about it. Eventually, Balajee was arrested on September 30 along Kovan Road in Suburban Singapore. Several laptops and mobile phones were seized from him in connection with the case, the police said.
Balajee is currently out on SGD 20,000 bail
Balajee is believed to have used multiple fictitious e-mail accounts to deliver the threats. Preliminary investigations also found that he might have used overseas registered mobile lines and virtual private network (VPN) services to mask his identity. VPNs allow unauthorized content from overseas to be accessed by users. Currently out on SGD 20,000 bail, Balajee will be back in court on October 30.
