Efforts are on to arrest other members of the gang, said a police official. (Representational)
Delhi Crime Branch sleuths busted a gang involved in honey-trapping people and also arrested its kingpin, identified as Neeraj.
The accused belongs to Bahadurgarh, Haryana. The arrest was made near PVR Cinema, Sector-14, Prashant Vihar, Rohini. One mobile phone, four SIM cards, one debit card, one Scooty and one hand-written script used to blackmail the targets were recovered from his possession. During interrogation, he confessed to the crime.
He and his gang members honeytrapped more than a dozen victims in the past one and a half years. They extorted Rs 5-10 lakh from each of the victims, based on their paying capacity, the police said.
The gang began its activities just before the first lockdown. The accused used to create a fake Facebook profile in the name of a girl and send 'friend requests' to their targets. After confirmation of the request, they chatted with their victims, through Facebook messenger, pretending to be a girl. Once they obtained the mobile phone number of the victim, they sent obscene content to lure them. The lady member of the gang made video call to further entice the victim.
In course of the chat, they used to assess the paying capacity of the victims. Once they were convinced about the financial background of the target, the lady member of the gang would invite the victim to a pre-decided place and indulge in sexual activity. After some days, the victim was lured to come for another meeting. After some time, other gang members, posing as policemen, used to knock the room and threatened the victim to book them in cases if he does not pay them. Efforts are on to arrest other members of the gang, said a police official.
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