India, Aug. 10 -- A special Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime (MCOC) Act court has acquitted four alleged members of a crime syndicate led by Anees Ibrahim, brother of fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar. The four were suspects in a Rs.50-lakh extortion bid against a Malad hotelier between July 2017 and June 2018.

Special Judge Mahesh K Jadhav said the prosecution had "utterly failed" to establish that the accused had conspired with Anees and his close aide Chhota Shakil to threaten and extort money from the victim. The court added that the evidence did not prove a criminal conspiracy or the mandatory "continued unlawful activity required to invoke the MCOC Act.

The case relates to an FIR registered on June 22, 2018, at the Mal...