bengaluru four members of a family are now cooling their heels in jail for allegedly extorting rs 75 lakh from a citybased businessman by blackmailing him over several issues including the concocted murder of a 39yearold widow krishnadas 58 had no clue that the extortion was masterminded by the murdered woman who he used to help financiallybaby rani daughter preethi 23 her husband manikandan alias patel babu 30 and his brother prasad 26 a cabbie from thindlu near vidyaranyapura north bengaluru were arrested for cheating krishnadas a catering businessman and resident of nandini layoutkrishnadas and rani were in a relationship and she often shared with him her family problems and took money from him however rani who was aware of his wealth decided to make a quick buck and hatched a plan with her family members in february rani invited krishnadas to her residence while they were in a compromising position manikandan and prasad posing as police officials raided the house threatening to book him for prostitution they managed to take rs 5 lakh from himin july manikandan and prasad contacted krishnadas and told him that baby rani had been murdered and they suspected his role as her family mentioned his name in the complaint a panicky krishnadas sought the duos help to close the case and paid rs 20 lakh the duo made him cough up another rs 10 lakh claiming that senior officials and some prokannada organisations too had to be paid off again in september the fake cops called krishnadas and told him that there were chances that the murder case might be reopened and demanded rs 20 lakh krishnadas pledged his assets and paid the same in october baby ranis daughter preethi called krishnadas and threatened to file a complaint against him with the karnataka state commission for women for suppressing her mothers murder case krishnadas had to pay rs 20 lakh to preethi also it was only when the police officials called in november asking him to pay rs 65 lakh more to close the case krishnadas smelt a rat soon he approached nandini layout police with a complainthow fraudsters trappednandini layout police hatched a plan and told krishnadas to agree to the blackmailers demand to pay more money when manikandan and prasad came to collect cash police picked them up baby rani and preethi were found in another car behind the duos vehiclekrishnadas feared that his reputation would be compromised and the gang took advantage of this police said wheres the moneypolice recovered rs 11 lakh two cars and a motorcycle from the accused who had invested most of the money to build a fourstorey house in thindlu the underconstruction building has been sealed