"Pay, Or Will Release Sex Video": How 36-Year-Old Scammed Men Across India

Delhi police today arrested the mastermind in a sextortion racket who had blackmailed several people across the country. Mahendra Singh, who was caught in Haryana's Mewat, had been running the scam for the last few years.

He came under the police radar after a Delhi man lodged a complaint that he was being blackmailed. The man had first received a call from a woman who agreed to an intimate video call with the victim.

Posing as a cop, ACP Ram Pandey, Mahendra then called the victim and demanded money to delete the video. He demanded Rs 9 lakh from the man with a promise of deleting the video, in which the victim was naked, police said.

Despite the victim paying him the amount, he called again and demanded Rs 15 lakh more to not pursue the case. Mahendra threatened to send the man's family to jail if he did not pay.

Police say the victim was so scared that he did not tell anyone about it initially. But he confided in his friend several days later, who urged him to lodge a police complaint.

Police immediately launched a probe and spent days searching for Mahendra, who was finally arrested from Mewat. Police found a swipe machine, BharatPe, a pen drive, a 16 GB memory card, and an iPhone in his possession.

Investigation revealed that there were several other victims whom Mahendra had blackmailed similarly. The 36-year-old confessed that while calling victims, he would either use the name ACP Ram Pandey or call himself a YouTuber and threaten to make their objectionable videos public.