Police detain blackmailer

The police say they have detained a blackmailer who threatened to explode a shopping centre in Prague if he did not receive 50 million crowns from the state. The money was to be placed in a bag and tossed from an express train going from the West Bohemian town of Cheb to the Czech-German border. The police say they are confident they have the right man and will be pressing charges. No further details have been released. The police have had to deal with a growing number of extortionist cases this year, with blackmailers threatening to blow up rail tracks, hospitals or shopping centres.