Gurugram: Man duped, extorted of ₹6.3 crore in four years by unknown suspects

A senior police officer said that the extortion and blackmailing continued between May 2021 and July 2025.

A 58-year-old man from Gurugram was allegedly extorted of ₹6.3 crore over nearly four years by unidentified suspects who posed as a foreign airline air hostess and her family members, including a Meghalaya police officer, police said on Friday.

Police said, teams have been formed to trace and arrest the suspects.

Police said the victim is a resident of Palm Springs in Sector 53, he runs a consulting firm and is a former director and chief marketing officer of a private insurance company.

A senior police officer said that the extortion and blackmailing continued between May 2021 and July 2025.

“The woman first contacted the victim on Facebook in 2020 and later shifted the conversation to WhatsApp. After months of chatting, she sent him objectionable photographs, which are suspected to be morphed by police. The suspect then demanded money from the victim by blackmailing him by saying that she will leak their personal chats,” said the officer.

Police officers said that soon after, other suspects entered the scene, impersonating the woman’s father, brother and mother. One of them claimed to be a Meghalaya police officer involved in the security of the state’s chief minister, while another posed as a sub-divisional officer with the Meghalaya government.

“The victim had transferred ₹5000 into the woman’s account in May 2021 when she made him talk to a suspect who identified himself as her father and sought apology to win his trust,” he said.

A senior police officer said the suspects continued to demand money on various pretexts, including fees for pilot training for the victim’s brother, cancer treatment of suspect’s mother, illness of a newborn child of the air hostess, and suicide threats, among others. The extortion allegedly continued till July 2025.

Police said, the victim had transferred ₹32.38 lakh into the suspects’ bank accounts in 2021, ₹47.15 lakh in 2022, ₹1.25 crore in 2023, ₹2.1 crore in 2024 and ₹2.14 crore in 2025.

Investigators said that whenever the victim refused to transfer the money, the suspects threatened him by sharing screenshots of chats and objectionable images, and warned of circulating them.

Police said the sustained pressure took a toll on the victim’s health, and he reportedly suffered a brain stroke and paralysis in 2022.

The fraud came to light when the victim’s chartered accountant noticed repeated transactions to two bank accounts in Meghalaya and questioned him, said police, adding that till then, the victim believed that the woman was actually an air hostess. The victim later stated in the FIR that he then realised he had been cheated.

When the victim blocked the suspects’ numbers in May last year, they allegedly contacted him from May to December last year, using multiple numbers and sent messages and images to his wife, son, business partners, former colleagues and their spouses, demanding more money.

Police said the victim filed a complaint on the national cybercrime portal in December 8 last year, following which an FIR was registered at Sector 53 police station on Wednesday.

The case has been registered under sections 308(2) (extortion), 316(2) (criminal breach of trust), 351(2) (criminal intimidation), 356(2) (defamation) and 61 (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

Sandeep Turan, public relations officer of Gurugram police, said teams have been formed to trace and arrest the suspects. “We are also coordinating with banks to freeze the defrauded amount if it is still present in any account,” he said.