KARACHI: Police on Monday claimed to have arrested three alleged extortionists, who it said tended to target doctors and pharmaceutical companies and have links with a South Africa-based group.

“Police arrested two suspected extortionists from Khawaja Ajmair Nagri, Wasif Rafiq and Faizan alias Matto, and seized computers from their custody,” said Karachi-West DIG, Feroze Shah.

On their pointation, their third accomplice, Hasan Tufail, was also detained.

“This is an international gang of extortionists who mostly targeted doctors and pharmaceutical companies,” added the police officer, while speaking at press conference.

“Several doctors have left the country due to fear,” believed the DIG West.

Shah said the “held suspects belonged to a political party,” without naming the party.

“They were involved in extortion during the last five years but they tended to use names of outlawed Lyari gang-war outfits and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, while sending extortion chits to doctors, pharmas and traders,” claimed the officer.

The money generated through extortion was being sent to South Africa, said the DIG, through the account of the wife of one Junaid Baghdadi, resident of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Feroze Shah said two accomplices of the held suspects, identified as Hafiz Furqan and Johnson, are based in South Africa.

The DIG West also showed copies of extortion chits to media, which he said were retrieved from the computer data of the detained suspects.

Feroze Shah disclosed that the police had approached the federal government for the arrest of extortionists based in South Africa.