News India How a gang posed as cops to honey trap people to extort money using Facebook

How a gang posed as cops to honey trap people to extort money using Facebook

Delhi Police arrested a gang that honey-trapped dozens of people and extorted lakhs of rupees. The gang used 'Facebook' to lure their victims. Here is how they operated.

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The Delhi Police on Monday busted a gang that allegedly honey-trapped dozens of people after luring them, and extorted Rs 5-10 lakh from each of the victims by posing as policemen. The kingpin, identified as Neeraj was arrested. 

Here is how they carried out each of their crimes: The accused, who began their activities just before the first lockdown, made fake Facebook profiles in the names of girls. They would then send 'friend requests' to their targets. After confirmation of the request, they chatted with their victims, through Facebook messenger, pretending to be a girl. Once they obtained the mobile phone number of the victim, they sent obscene content to lure them. The lady member of the gang made a video call to further entice the victim.

During the process, the gang would assess the 'paying capacity of their victims. The lady member of the gang then would invite the victim to a pre-decided place and indulge in sexual activity. After some days, the victim was lured to come for another meeting. After some time, other gang members, posing as policemen, used to knock on the room and threaten the victim to book them in cases if he does not pay them.

The police, in their bust, recovered one mobile phone, four SIM cards, one debit card, one Scooty, and one hand-written script used to blackmail the targets. During the investigation, the leader of the honey trapping gang confessed to the crimes.  He and his gang members honey trapped more than a dozen victims in the past one and a half years. They extorted Rs 5-10 lakh from each of the victims, based on their paying capacity, the police said. Efforts are on to arrest other members of the gang, said a police official.

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