Cuttack, Aug.12: Police have arrested three persons for opening fake bank accounts here and hoarding extortion money collected by an inter-state gang. The gang reportedly operates from Calcutta.

Cuttack deputy commissioner of police Akhileswar Singh told The Telegraph today that the accused harboured the extortion money in fake bank accounts for commission.

"The accused received a commission from the inter-state extortion gang which seems to operate from Calcutta," Singh said.

The fake accounts came to light when the police from Rajnandagaon in Chhattisgarh reached Cuttack while investigating into a complaint of extortion of about Rs 10 lakh over the phone. The extortion victim had deposited the amount in five bank accounts as directed over the phone.

The Chhattisgarh police team had traced one of the account numbers to a SBI branch at Sector 9 in Markatnagar in which the victim had deposited Rs1.6 lakh.

Inquiry with the bank revealed that the account was in the name of Sonu Singh, purported to be a resident of Markatnagar, but the documents were found to be fake. However, the photograph helped the police to track the person who had opened the fake account.

With the help of the city police, the person was tracked down to a house in the same area and identified as Dhiraj Rao. While taking Rao into custody, the police seized Rs 54,000 in cash and several ATM debit cards of various banks.

Two other associates of Rao were also nabbed with the help of information divulged by him during interrogation. They were identified as Swapna Sajit Pradhan of Puri and Janmejay Das of Kendrapada.

"The Chhattisgarh police took custody of the accused after their arrest for further interrogation," Singh said.

Another police source said Rao, a native of Champaran in Bihar, was staying in a rented house here after graduating from an engineering college in Bhubaneswar. Pradhan worked as a technician and Das as an accountant at a private hospital in Markatnagar.

Investigation revealed that the trio got involved with the inter-state gang to earn commission.

The gang reportedly has people from Bihar and some Muslims. It probably operates from Calcutta by using SIM boxes for making extortion calls after picking up targets from various parts of the country.

Another police officer said that the calls from the SIM boxes were made to appear as if they were from Pakistan.