Mumbai: Cops arrest Agra resident in sextortion racket

DB Marg police on Friday arrested a 23-year-old man from Agra, Uttar Pradesh in connection with a sextortion racket. The gang has allegedly extorted money from a number of people across cities, the police said.

DB Marg police on Friday arrested a 23-year-old man from Agra, Uttar Pradesh in connection with a sextortion racket. The gang has allegedly extorted money from a number of people across cities, the police said.

For representational purposes only. (HT FILE)

The accused, Anupsingh Bhupendrasingh Badhoriya, has been arrested in connection with the first information report (FIR) filed based on a Grant Road resident’s complaint last month.

The complainant had, in December last year, received a friend request from a woman on a social media site. The complainant accepted the request and the two started chatting. After a while, the woman allegedly insisted on exchanging contact numbers and made a video call to him. When the complainant picked up the call, the woman undressed and made the complainant take off clothes.

Few minutes later, the complainant received a recording of the video call from the woman’s number. She then allegedly threatened to send the video clip to the complainant’s relatives and friends if he failed to pay ₹21,000, said the police.

He sent ₹5,000 to the woman, asked her to give him some time to arrange the rest and then approached DB Marg police.

Police officers analysed call details of the caller and found that the money was first transferred to an e-wallet account and from there to some bank accounts. “One of these accounts belonged to Bhadoriya, who was subsequently arrested. Bhadoriya works as an agent for opening new bank accounts in Agra and was managing many bank accounts. He was involved in diverting extortion money from one account to another. His bank accounts had large number of suspicious transactions. He is a member of the sextortion racket,” said inspector Raja Bidkar of DB Marg police station.

Police have secured his custody from the court on Friday and are interrogating him for more details on other members of the racket, Bidkar added.