The Special Task Force of Odisha police have arrested two siblings who personated as Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials to extort government officials, an official said on Sunday.

The arrested computer-savvy had excellent command in English. Posing as ED Additional Directors, the duo had attempted to extort over 300 government officers, threatening to slap economic offence cases against them, said STF officials.

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The arrested imposters are identified as Tarinisen Mohapatra (30) and Brahmashankar Mohapatra (27), both natives of Dhenkanal town. The duo had hatched the conspiracy to extort more than 300 government officials. In some of the extortion bids, the two siblings, who were operating from Ranchi in Jharkhand, had succeeded

The STF cracked the case on a complaint lodged by Debadatta Mohanta, Sub-Collector cum Sub Divisional Magistrate, Chhatrapur.

The arrested persons had demanded money from the complainant while impersonating as Additional Director, Enforcement Directorate.

To maintain their luxurious life, both the brothers hatched a plan to cheat the vulnerable government officials by impersonating themselves as “Additional Director of Enforcement Directorate, Bhubaneswar”.

They especially chose “ED” because of the current prevailing news coverage about various ED raids. They watched and studied all ED related news articles so that they could impersonate and imitate well to scare and extort government officials.

The computer-savvy brothers created lots of fake documents, letterheads, clearance letters and logos.

They made whatsApp voice calls to the government officials of different state government departments by collecting the government official’s mobile number from the web directory and other sources.

They also saved their number in “True Caller” and WhatsApp profile name as: “Sanjay Mishra ED”. They identified themselves as Sanjaya Mishra, Additional Director, Enforcement Directorate.

They would generally tell the government officials that one complaint case has been instituted against him which was received from the Vigilance Department relating to a corruption case and ED is about to begin the enquiry and raids against him.

If any government official did not respond to their voice /WhatsApp calls , they sent SMS / WhatsApp messages as “This side Sanjaya Mishra, Director of Enforcement Department …. My investigation officer tried to connect you but you did not attend the call. Make an instant call. It’s very urgent, else I can’t control the vigilance “. They asked money to either settle or close the so-called case.

They received the money from the government officials from their digital money payment wallets. So far, STF has traced the transaction/payment of more than Rs 16 lakh. As they were staying in Ranchi, there is every possibility that they might have targeted officials of the Jharkhand government. Further investigation is underway in this regard, added STF officials.

Investigation is on to find out whether they have done similar impersonation/ extortion targeting Jharkhand government officials as they were staying in Ranchi too.

After receiving the demanded money, accused persons sent fabricated clearance letters (of Enforcement Directorate and central vigilance commission) to the government officials concerned.