Police bust gang that made obscene videos to extort money

The Delhi Police busted a gang of six members, including three women, who allegedly made obscene videos of people and later used them for extorting money in New Delhi’s Keshav Puram, the police said on Monday.

The accused women used to lure victims into a honeytrap while the male members posed as police officers and journalists. The accused men used to beat and threaten the victims into parting with their money.

Items recovered

The police said that they have accessed video clips, which showed the brutal assault of victims at the hands of the gang members.

Three television mikes, a hand-held video camera and a digital camera have also been recovered from the accused, the police added.

Modus operandi

On April 1, a man filed a complaint stating that he had received a WhatsApp message from an unknown number.

The messenger told him her name and called him to her place in New Delhi’s Keshav Puram on pretext of some computer software issue. She took him to a room and asked him to wait, the victim alleged.

After two to three minutes, she came close to him and shut the door.

Before he could do anything, four persons suddenly burst into the room claiming themselves to be from the police and media.

They beat him up mercilessly and forcibly undressed him.

Following this, the accused shot a video of the man with the woman in a compromising position and threatened to circulate it.

They also threatened to implicate him in a rape case.

“They asked the victim to pay ₹5 lakh for deleting the videos. They took his debit cards and withdrew ₹25,000 from it and released him only when he promised to pay ₹1.25 lakh in the next two days. The victim then approached police with the complaint,” an officer said.

The Crime Branch team investigating the case started to concentrate on the gang’s base of operations in Keshav Puram.

The police managed to locate a flat where the accused women stayed.

“The accused would get in touch with the victims on dating sites and contact them on WhatsApp. After this, they took the victims inside their flat in Keshav Puram,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Alok Singh said. The women in the gang would get intimate with the victims and then inform the others — Sameer, Siddiqui and Sanjay.

“Sanjay would pose as an ACP-rank officer while the other two men would pose as media persons. They would conduct a dummy raid and catch the victim in a compromising position. Sanjay would assault the victims while the others made videos,” a police officer said.