A 28-year-old man was arrested Wednesday on charges of blackmailing numerous women, nearly a 100 of them, after befriending with them on social media platforms, police said. The suspect, Ravi Singh, hails from Etah district and lives in Greater Noida, police said.
Vishal Pandey, additional deputy commissioner of police, Greater Noida, said they detained him after receiving an alert about a suspicious looking person moving about near City Park in Beta 2 on Wednesday. “A police team reached the spot and found the person sitting under a tree. He was chatting with people using multiple mobile phones. The police apprehended him and recovered five mobile phones, 25 SIM cards, nine fake IDs, six debit cards and a fiction novel – World’s Best Boyfriend – from his possession.”
Police said the suspect was later brought to Sector Beta 2 police station for questioning. The police sifted through his bag and found a diary that contained the phone numbers of over 50 women. “The names against these phone numbers were written in codes that only he understood. During questioning, he told us that he has been conning women since the past two years,” Pandey said.
“He claimed to be a graduate. He said the novel helped him in understanding what women would like in a friendship/relationship. He had subsequently memorised certain dialogues from the book and used them to ensnare women he met on social media. Singh used to call these women to a meeting place and seek money or sex from them. He also blackmailed them by threatening to make their chats and photos/videos public,” Pandey said. Police also recovered a gold chain and a branded wristwatch from his possession.
{{/usCountry}}“He claimed to be a graduate. He said the novel helped him in understanding what women would like in a friendship/relationship. He had subsequently memorised certain dialogues from the book and used them to ensnare women he met on social media. Singh used to call these women to a meeting place and seek money or sex from them. He also blackmailed them by threatening to make their chats and photos/videos public,” Pandey said. Police also recovered a gold chain and a branded wristwatch from his possession.
{{/usCountry}}Sujit Upadhyaya, SHO, Beta 2 police station, said the suspect blackmailed some women into giving him their credit and debit card number and used the same for online shopping. “A scan of his mobile phone shows that he has cheated and blackmailed over 100 women for money or sex,” he said. Police said the suspect had no FIR registered against him in the past even though he was involved in this criminal activity for over two years.
Pandey said subsequently an FIR was registered against him under Section 420 (cheating), Section 467 (forgery of valuable security), Section 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), Section 471 (whoever fraudulently or dishonestly uses as genuine) and Section 67 of the IT Act, 2008.
Singh was produced in court and later sent to judicial custody.