“Where did you get my number? Why are you asking me for money? I am only a small-time property dealer, I don’t have that kind of cash,” protested the businessman from East Delhi to someone who had been repeatedly showing up as various international numbers on his mobile phone earlier this year.Late on January 12, two boys riding a motorcycle fired shots at the businessman’s home in West Vinod Nagar. They were caught after a gunfight with police in Burari, North Delhi, a few days later – one of them turned out to be a minor and the other barely an adult.Police said the teens were given the job by Randeep Malik, an alleged associate of the gangster Lawrence Bishnoi. Bishnoi has been in jail for more than a decade now. Malik is believed to be living in the United States.Police said the East Delhi property dealer had received around 20 calls over the Internet from numbers virtually located in several countries, and voice notes on WhatsApp demanding Rs 5 crore in ‘protection money’ – essentially a fee to escape harm.Two hours before they shot at the property dealer’s home, the same two teens on the motorcycle had fired shots outside a gym across the city in West Delhi.The gym is owned by a social media influencer couple who run a healthy eating channel on YouTube. They too had been receiving extortion calls demanding Rs 5 crore, police said.Soon after these shootings, someone calling themselves Randeep Malik claimed responsibility in a post on Facebook via an account set up by one “Sumit”.The two teenage shooters told police interrogators that they had been contacted online by someone who identified themselves as Anil Pandit. They had been hired for the job on social media, and they connected with the alleged gang members on the secure messaging application Signal, police said.Story continues below this adSome features of the way the operations during the night of January 12-13 were carried out were distinctive – and relatively new in the landscape of crime, specifically extortion, in Delhi, police officers said.Calls made over Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which does not require a SIM and masks the caller’s physical location, were not very common until recently, and the hiring of shooters entirely over social media and messaging apps with no physical contact with recruiters at any point during the planning is new, the officers said.New too is the choice of targets for extortion – property dealers, owners of mithai shops, jewellery shops, or gyms, minor Internet celebrities such as social media influencers and popular YouTubers, dealers of second hand cars, liquor traders, and the like.Individuals belonging to this group are not necessarily high-profile, visible, or widely recognisable in the way film and society stars, or prominent businesspersons or professionals are, but who are nonetheless seen by criminals as potential targets for extortion. “Well known businessmen, bookies, politicians, and celebrities remain prime targets for criminals. However, in the past few years, it has been noticed that traders and businesspersons who are neither well known nor particularly wealthy have also been receiving extortion calls,” said a senior police officer.Based on investigations into cases of shooting and calls for extortion, and looking to infiltrate the information networks of gangsters based overseas, the Special Cell of Delhi Police recently began an exercise to map clubs and bars across the city that are frequently visited by individuals of this target group, and to screen their staff.Story continues below this adAlso Read | Why Delhi Police wants trials in jail: Gangsters turning court appearances into Instagram Reel opportunities“Certain clubs and bars are popular with businessmen who meet to strike deals and party in them, and their staff could be a source of information for criminals operating from abroad,” said the officer quoted above. “This (screening of staff) is one of the ways in which we are conducting local-level checks.”Police officers said the protection rackets run on a model similar to the well known one of the Mumbai underworld, in which a mafia don based abroad issue threats to celebrities and prominent businessmen. “The difference in Delhi is in the wide variety of people who are being targeted,” another officer said.Also, the officer said, “Gangs in North India used to focus primarily on illegal activities such as drugs and firearms trafficking, but of late, extortion syndicates have become much more active.”Police officers said the criminal extortion business spurted in Delhi especially after the murder of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala in Mansa, Punjab, in May 2022, and the Lawrence Bishnoi gang gained widespread notoriety.Story continues below this ad“Earlier, businessmen would receive extortion threats from gangs led by Neeraj Bawana, Kapil Sangwan and Jitender Maan alias Gogi. After Moosewala’s assassination, many of them began to receive threats in the names of Lawrence Bishnoi and Goldy Brar, a former associate of Bishnoi,” an officer said.Bishnoi is currently lodged in Sabarmati Jail in Ahmedabad, and Brar is believed to be in Canada.Delhi businessmen have also complained of receiving extortion calls in the names of gangsters Himanshu Bhau and Rohit Godara. Bhau, who belongs to Haryana, and Godara, who is from Rajasthan, are believed to be operating from Portugal and the US respectively.In gangsterspeak, making VoIP calls to an identified target is referred to as “dabba calling”. If the target does not respond to the calls or threatening voice notes sent on WhatsApp, warning messages may be sent. If the target continues to ignore the threats, armed men visit their home or office and fire shots – taking care to injure no one but only to signal intent.Story continues below this adThese warning visits are typically made by two individuals, one of whom records video as the other does the shooting. The video is sent to the recruiter and ultimately reaches the gang leader as proof of task completed. The video is then forwarded to the target with the intention of terrorising him, often accompanied by a message such as “Yeh to trailer tha” (This was only a sample of what could happen to you and your family), police officers said.The two shooters arrested last month told police that they had been promised Rs 50,000 for the job, and had received some part of it in advance. One of the teens said he wanted a weapon to use against someone in his village, and had signed up for the job in order to get his hands on one. The gang allegedly promised to help him settle his personal scores, but only after the job of firing at the homes of the gym owner and property dealer was done.A senior officer said most of the shooters arrested in the recent past in connection with crimes linked to the Lawrence Bishnoi, Goldy Brar, or Himanshu Bhau gangs were unemployed individuals who had been contacted over social media by accounts created in the names of these gangster bosses. These social media accounts are fairly active, and are frequently updated with videos and messages on the activities of the gangs, making them attractive to unemployed, criminally inclined young men many of whom are looking to earn easy money, police officers said.Members of the gang closely monitor the new follower accounts. Once a potential recruit is identified, a conversation is opened on an encrypted messaging platform such as Zangi or Signal. Their backgrounds are verified and, in some cases, they are asked to take a firing test before the task is assigned. It is through this process that the Lawrence Bishnoi gang has expanded its network to around 700 criminal associates around the country, police officers said.Story continues below this adOfficially, the Delhi Police claims to have solved more than 65 per cent of extortion cases they have taken up. However, officers said a large number of cases are never reported because the businessmen, some of whom do not want police scrutiny of their financial situation, choose to quietly pay up.The criminals who have been arrested are largely the foot soldiers who carry out the shootings. The recruiters or middlemen who plan these attacks are rarely identified. The gangs primarily operate by invoking the names of their infamous leaders.In cases where the police are informed, security is provided to the target based on an assessment of the threat.“Those who approach us after receiving extortion threats are first assessed for threat perception by our Special Cell. In many cases, businessmen come to the police only after shots have been fired at their office or residence. The local police immediately provide security, and after a detailed assessment, permanent security personnel from the security unit may be deployed,” the senior officer said.Story continues below this adSection 308 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) describes the crime of “Extortion”: “Whoever intentionally puts any person in fear of any injury to that person, or to any other, and thereby dishonestly induces the person so put in fear to deliver to any person any property, or valuable security or anything signed or sealed which may be converted into a valuable security, commits “extortion”.This section of the law is usually invoked against the accused in cases of protection money demands, along with other provisions such as criminal conspiracy and sections of the Arms Act. Punishment could be up to seven years in jail.Jailed gangsters such as Neeraj Bawana, Jitender Maan alias Gogi, and Nandu have faced punishment in such cases. Former underworld don Abu Salem was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2018 in connection with a Rs-5-crore extortion demand on a Greater Kailash businessman in 2002.