Overview
- Aligarh police arrested Hashmat Hussain, a lower-division clerk at Aligarh Muslim University, after recipients reported threatening letters demanding protection money.
- The office says the letters were sent by speed post to eight people, including AMU officials, a leading jeweller and a senior medical consultant, and sought payment via Bitcoin or QR code totaling about Rs 2 crore.
- Investigators traced the parcels to the Delhi General Post Office, reviewed CCTV footage to identify the sender and arrested the suspect within days of the complaints.
- During questioning the accused admitted to staging the threats while facing roughly Rs 1 crore in debt and investigators recovered his mobile used for cryptocurrency trading and a fake identity document.
- He has been booked under Section 308(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and police warn that impersonation of known criminals and demands for crypto pose new challenges for tracing extortion payments.