Police are appealing to the public for help to track down a suspect in connection to the extortion of a woman near a CTrain station in the city’s south on New Year’s Day.

Police say a woman was on a southbound CTrain at about 4:00 p.m. on January 1 when an unknown man passed by her and grabbed her cell phone.

He left the train at the Southland Station and was chased by the woman who asked him to return her phone.

The man refused to give her the phone and allegedly told the woman that she would have to pay him to get it back.

She went with him to a nearby bank and withdrew cash. The man gave her the phone in exchange for the money and then he fled the scene.

The woman contacted police about the incident when she got home.

The suspect was wearing a black jacket, dark pants, light-brown boots, a black hat with a white logo on it, and sunglasses.

Anyone with information about the identity of the man is asked to call police at 403-266-1234, or Crime Stoppers anonymously using the following methods:

TALK: 1-800-222-8477
TYPE: www.calgarycrimestoppers.org