3 held over ‘bid’ to blackmail Paytm founder

Mumbai, October 23

An court on Tuesday remanded three persons, including the spokeswoman of the country’s biggest digital payments company Paytm, to a week’s custody over an alleged bid to blackmail its founder and extort $2.7 million by threatening to leak stolen personal data.

The incident threatens to embarrass the company, synonymous with taking digital payments mainstream in India after the government’s controversial currency note ban in 2016, as well as its billionaire founder.

Paytm, whose investors include China’s Alibaba Group and Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp, has declined to say how the stolen material would have allowed the blackmail of its founder, but added that only his personal data was taken. “Paytm would like to reiterate that all our consumer data is protected with the highest and most impenetrable levels of security,” it told Reuters in a statement, declining further comment until the results of the police investigation are known. — Reuters