The Mumbai Crime Branch has filed a 1,000-page chargesheet against two college students accused of sending threatening emails to Reliance Industries Ltd and its chairman, Mukesh Ambani, demanding ₹500 crore.
Rajveer Khant, 21, and Ganesh Vanaparthi, 19, were apprehended in separate operations last year. Khant, a third-year commerce student from Kalol, Gujarat, was caught by the Crime Intelligence Unit (CIU), while Vanaparthi, a computer science student from Warangal, Telangana, was arrested by the Gamdevi police in November.
Investigators have described Khant, the son of a Gujarat police head constable, as a tech-savvy individual who frequently used the dark web and VPNs to conceal his location. In one audacious email, he reportedly challenged authorities with the taunt, “Catch Me If You Can.”
“Khant used to mask his internet protocol (IP) address, leaving very little room for authorities to trace him,” a police officer stated. “However, he was accessing mailfence.com and had created an email account impersonating someone named Shadab Khan. While accessing the email account, it took time to change VPN networks, and we got our first clue as we obtained his IP address.”
According to the chargesheet, Khant sent five emails to Ambani between 27 October and 1 November 2023, with escalating demands ranging from ₹20 crore to ₹400 crore.
Vanaparthi, acting independently, sent a single email to Ambani on 1 November, demanding ₹500 crore. During interrogation, he claimed to have sent the email “for fun” after seeing news reports about the threats Ambani had received.
The investigation involved extensive collaboration with service providers. “We found that out of 500 mailfence.com users in India, only 150 were active in October. On 25 October, just before Ambani received the threatening emails, only one person in India was using a mailfence email ID. This was a major breakthrough,” an officer explained.
Khant reportedly chose the name “Shadab Khan” for his email account after watching a cricket World Cup match where the Pakistani player was performing well.
Despite Khant’s confidence in his anonymity, the Crime Branch team, led by Milind Kate, successfully traced him through meticulous analysis of technical data and cooperation with various agencies and service providers in India and abroad.
Both accused have been charged under Sections 387 and 506(2) of the Indian Penal Code, dealing with extortion and criminal intimidation. If convicted, they could face up to seven years in prison.