Tamil Nadu: YouTuber ‘PUBG’ Madhan held, accounts with Rs 4 crore frozen, cars seized

CHENNAI: Police on Friday nabbed ‘PUBG’ Madhan Manickam, booked for his abusive content targeting teenagers through his YouTube channels, in Dharmapuri.
A special team of the Chennai city cybercrime wing, which traced the 29-year-old to a relative’s house, brought him to Chennai where a magistrate’s court sent him to jail.
The team, which was hunting for him even as the Madras high court dismissed his plea for anticipatory bail, initially found it difficult as he used a virtual private server (VPN) to hide his digital footprints but eventually succeeded.
Police, who froze two bank accounts belonging to Madhan and one operated by his wife Kiruthika — together containing at least Rs 4 crore — also seized an Audi and a BMW from his residence. Investigators are also questioning Madhan’s father Manickam, who worked as a road contractor in Salem for some time, in the present case.
Tracing his career, a police officer said Madhan, who graduated from an engineering college in Salem, later relocated with his family to Chennai’s Ambattur where Manickam started a restaurant.
Madhan fell in love with Kiruthika after meeting online on a social media platform and they got married. Their child is now eight months old. In 2019, Madhan, who had got hooked on to ‘PUBG’ while in college, decided to float YouTube channel Toxic Madhan 18+, despite the Centre banning it.
He later launched Pubg Madan Girl Fan and Richie Gaming on YouTube, their abusive content helping him secure a huge fan base, the officer said. It was this toxic content that the Madras high court judge reviewing his anticipatory bail had asked his counsel to listen to.
The cybercrime wing had registered a case against Madhan under sections of the IPC, Information Technology (IT) Act and The Indecent Representation of Women Prohibition Act, 1986, after receiving more than 100 complaints. The officer said, “The couple [Madhan and Kiruthika] uploaded obscene content to make their channel popular. She [Kiruthika] is also the admin of the channel and uploaded the videos on YouTube.”
The officer said Madhan and his wife enjoyed a lavish lifestyle as they earned a huge revenue from YouTube channels, which together had as many as eight lakh subscribers including many juveniles.
Watch Tamil Nadu: YouTuber ‘Toxic’ Madan, wanted for abusive videos, arrested from Dharmapuri