Police arrest three from Rajasthan for running sextortion racket

The three accused were identified as Jubin, 39, Rashid, 19, and Arjudin, 24. Police said that cell phones and bank account documents were recovered from their possession. They were remanded in police custody. Jubin and Arjudin are school dropouts and Rashid is pursuing ITI in his local area.

“The three gang members of interstate extortion racket who are involved in threatening and extorting money from the residents of Chandigarh and other states were arrested. This sextortion racket is being run in a well-organised manner in which accused are working in a close-knit network and co-ordinated manner by dividing duties of the gang members,” said SP (Operation cell) Ketan Bansal.

The SP added, “They identify their target through Facebook. They start chatting and slowly start sending lascivious messages by impersonating as a female friend. Then they ask the target (victim) to come on a video call, where the first set of gang members comes into action and they make the target see a video already in their phone pretending it to be like a real video call. With the help of voice app, they communicate with their target. The victim feels that he is on live call with a girl, whereas he is just watching a video and talking to the accused person who changes their voice into female voice with the help of the voice app.”

Police said that the gang members cheated a Sector 19 resident, Manoj Kumar, after trapping him using a fictitious identity of a woman. Later, a case was registered with cyber cell police station Thursday.

SP Bansal made an appeal to the public not to indulge in such WhatsApp chatting and fell prey to these extortionists.