3 Paytm employees arrested for trying to extort Rs 20 crore from the e-wallet giant's founder

The three employees of the Noida-headquartered e-commerce and wallet firm were arrested late Monday afternoon by a team from the Sector 20 police station, while their fourth accomplice is still at large

Paytm Mall recently raised USD 200 million from SAIF Partners and Alibaba Group Holdings to grow its business.

Noida (UP): The Noida police on Monday arrested three Paytm employees, including a woman  for allegedly trying to extort Rs 20 crore from the e-wallet giant's founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma after threatening to leak stolen personal data and information. The arrested woman, who allegedly masterminded the extortion bid, is the secretary of Sharma and the trio had threatened to leak the data and misuse the information to cause the firm loss and dent its public image, officials said. The three employees of the Noida-headquartered e-commerce and wallet firm were arrested late Monday afternoon by a team from the Sector 20 police station, while their fourth accomplice is still at large, a senior official said. According to the police, those arrested are Sharma's woman secretary, her husband Roopak Jain and another Paytm employee Devnedra Kumar. The fourth accused, Rohit Chomal, is a resident of Kolkata and had allegedly made the extortion call to Sharma's brother Ajay Shekhar Sharma. The owner of Paytm had made a complaint with the police that their employees, a woman and her aides, had stolen some data from the company and were blackmailing. They were demanding Rs 20 crore for not leaking it, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ajay Pal Sharma said. (Agency inputs)