The police have arrested a seven-member gang on charges of intimidating and cheating girls and cybercrime and recovered from them 3.5 kg gold ornaments worth ₹1.10 crore , a luxury car, two motorcycles, tab and cellphones worth ₹13.50 lakh.
Addressing the media here on Friday, Superintendent of Police M. Raviprakash said the gang allegedly blackmailed girls after befriending them on social media sites by reportedly sending pictures of them taken with celebrities and lured girls into sharing their pictures with them. Later, they allegedly blackmailed the girls by morphing the pictures and indulged in extortion threatening to share the tampered pictures with their family members and friends. They allegedly demanded gold ornaments and money from their victims and threatened them that they failed to give them, the screenshots of their chatting would be sent to their parents and relatives.
The prime accused Dattu Balaji began started chatting with the daughter of a gold merchant in Eluru and in a similar modus operandi extorted 3.5 kg gold ornaments over two years. When the girl finally informed her parents about the cheating, her father filed a complaint with the police a few days ago.
K. Eswara Rao, DSP, formed a team and started investigating the case, and on Friday nabbed Dattu Balaji and recovered 2.19 kg of gold, two motorcycles, one iphone, one Apple tab, and some electronic equipment from him. The police also nabbed Simhadri Balachander alias Balu and recovered 1.077 kg of gold, a mobile phone from him. While an iphone and abot 163 gm of gold was recovered from the other accused Pilla Sai Devender Naidu, Vipparti Francis, Kondi Rajesh, Gujjula Rajiv and Tummalapalli Ashok Kumar.
“Based on a complaint we busted the gang and suspect that they would have carried out similar extortions by threatening more victims. We are also expecting more complaints in this case,” an officer investigating the case said.
The SP said the accused pledging the gold in MuthootFinance, Manappuram finance companies, UAE exchange and Axis Banks and gambled the money in casinos in Goa. He added that among the seven accused, two are working as medical representatives who completed their B. Pharma and rest are engineering dropouts.
