Man who allegedly tried to extort S$500,000 from StanChart charged
A woman walks down the stairs of the Standard Chartered headquarters in Hong Kong October 13, 2010. REUTERS/Bobby Yip/Files
SINGAPORE: A man who allegedly tried to extort S$500,000 from Standard Chartered Bank was charged on Tuesday (Oct 2) with attempting to place a man in fear of harm in order to commit extortion.
Indian national Nagarajan Balajee, 35, is accused of threatening to publish defamatory libel about StanChart's global head of digital banking and retail Aalishaan Zaidi, 47, unless Mr Zaidi gave him S$500,000 in cash.
Nagarajan allegedly committed this offence on the morning of Sep 27 at Standard Chartered@Changi 2 in Changi Business Park Crescent.
The bank made a police report on the day of the incident, and Nagarajan was arrested at Kovan Road three days later. Mr Zaidi was one of several employees who received e-mails from the accused.
StanChart said in its police report that it had received anonymous e-mails demanding S$500,000 in exchange for not leaking confidential information belonging to the bank.
The bank issued a statement later saying that the incident was "not related to our customer data or systems which remain secure".
"This was an isolated incident and was not a result of an external cybersecurity-related threat," said a StanChart spokesman.
Nagarajan was offered bail of S$20,000 and will be back in court on Oct 30.
If found guilty, he can be jailed for between two and five years and caned.
