Tamil Nadu: Man, 27, with woman’s voice cons and blackmails 350 men

CHENNAI: A 27-year-old engineering graduate who had a voice that sounded like a woman’s used it to lure some 350 men into sex chats and then extorted money from them since 2017 landed in police custody on Sunday after one of his victims finally mustered the courage to register a complaint.
Police identified the man as Vallal Rajkumar Reegan of Panakudi in Tirunelveli district and said he targeted men who downloaded the app Locanto looking for jobs.
Police got on his trail when P Udhayaraj of Maduravoyal approached the Mylapore police station alleging that a woman named Priya was making threatening calls to his mobile phone demanding money.
Udhayaraj told police he was browsing on the net on February 16 and downloaded Locanto looking for job opportunities, when a chat popped up offering sexual services.
A couple of minutes after he began to chat, he received a call from a woman who introduced herself as Priya. She spoke to him in a suggestive manner and offered to provide sexual favours. Udhayaraj said he then received a SMS on his mobile number to pay Rs 100 on a digital wallet platform. Soon after he sent the money, he received a nude picture of a woman. Later ‘Priya’ asked him to pay Rs 1,500 to send a video. He refused to pay and blocked the number, Udhayaraj told the police.
A while later he received a complaint copy on his mobile phone which showed a woman had filed a sexual harassment complaint against him. Later he began to receive calls from different numbers, all of which he blocked.
Police began their investigations with ‘Priya’s’ mobile number, which Udhayaraj shared with them. They found it belonged to a man and initially they thought he was trying to mimic a woman. Police said that when they interrogated Reegan, he told them he had been running the scam since 2017 and that he had cheated more than 350 men.
Reegan used to lodge fake complaints against all the victims giving fake mobile numbers. This was possible since the online complaint system does not ask for an OTP number. He has lodged 150 such complaints in Mylapore police district and a similar number in Kilpauk police districts in the past two years.
“While investigating the each complaint, police ended up dialing the complainant’s number which proved to be mostly fake,” said joint commissioner of police, East, R Sudhakar.
“He had been doing this only to extort money. None of the victims approached the police as they feared their names would get exposed,” Sudhakar added.
Police have registered cases against Reegan under IPC section 384 (punishment for extortion), 506 (i) (criminal intimidation) and the IT Act.