Police bust gang that honey trapped city real estate agents, 2 held

Two men were arrested from Gadoli Khurd village in Gurugram’s sector 10A on Monday for their alleged involvement in honey trapping several real estate agents in

Two men were arrested from Gadoli Khurd village in Gurugram’s sector 10A on Monday for their alleged involvement in honey trapping several real estate agents in the city and Delhi, the police said.

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With the arrests, police said they discovered a gang with at least two other members who they have identified, including a woman, who allegedly targeted businessmen and extorted lakhs of rupees by threatening to implicate them in false cases of sexual assault. The other members of the gang are yet to be arrested, said police.

Police identified the suspects by their names as 30-year-old Manjeet alias Gulli and 29-year-old Robin. They were arrested earlier too for similar cases and were out on bail.

The suspects had details of more than 10 real estate agents, said police. They allegedly visited their target’s offices often and offered to help them in their business during the countrywide lockdown that was enforced from March 25 to contain Covid-19. They allegedly took the woman, a friend of Manjeet’s, along.

The woman allegedly caught their target on video, which would be used to allegedly blackmail them.

Police said Manjeet was the kingpin of the gang and had been in operation for the last three months.

Preet Pal Sangwan, assistant commissioner of police (Crime), said the gang had extorted more than ₹10 lakh from several men. The most recent victim was a 32-year-old real estate agent from whom they extorted nearly ₹20,000.

“We received a complaint from a man who works out of his own office in his village. He showed the WhatsApp messages to us following which we formed a team headed by the inspector of crime investigation unit 53 that laid a trap. Within a day, enough evidence was collected and the two men were caught red-handed while making calls from their residence and were arrested,” Sangwan said.

According to the police, Manjeet told the woman to gain their victim’s trust and invite them to her rented apartment for drinks in Sector 10A. Once there, she would make videos of them with her to later blackmail them.

“The gang would allegedly threaten the men that they would file cases of sexual assault against them if they did not pay them the money. Out of fear that their identities would be exposed, no one would approach the police,” said Sangwan, adding that raids were on to arrest the others in the gang.

A case under sections 384 (extortion) , 387 (putting a person in fear of death or of grievous hurt, in order to commit extortion), 506 (criminal intimidation ), and 120B (conspiracy) of Indian Penal Code was registered at Sector 10 A police station on Monday night.