Five held for running a prostitution ring, robbing people

Noida: Five persons, including a couple and three women, were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly running a prostitution ring on the pretext of providing escort services and then robbing their customers

Noida: Five persons, including a couple and three women, were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly running a prostitution ring on the pretext of providing escort services and then robbing their customers.

HT Image

According to police officials, the suspects would advertise escort service facility online and once they got in contact with clients, they chatted with them to provide more services for which the rates varied.

“They would fix a time and place to meet with prospective clients. Then they would take the customers in a car and either used violence to rob them or blackmail to extort money from them,” said Rajesh S, deputy commissioner of police, zone 1.

The officials said that the gang was being run by a 27-year-old Assam-based woman and her 27-year-old husband from Uttar Pradesh. Three more women aged 35, 28 and 26 years were also arrested along with them. The couple was currently living in Delhi, police said.

The police officials said that they have recovered multiple sets of social media chats of the suspects which also showed connections with other similar gangs. The suspects had been operating for the past two years in the Delhi-NCR and their meeting places with prospective clients included malls and markets, police said.

Police also recovered a car from the suspects, along with several mobile phones, packets of contraceptives and ₹3,500 that was stolen from the complainant. They were booked at Sector 24 police station under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Police are now identifying other members of the gang and the cases in which they might be involved. Complainants take time coming forward due to social stigma, said police.

The five suspects were produced before a magistrate and later sent to jail.