Delhi: Sextortion racket busted by police, five held

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Five men have been arrested for allegedly extorting money from a businessman on the pretext to block the victim's obscene video on social media, police said on Friday.

The accused have been identified as Khurshid Khan (31), Raman (42), Kaluram (33), Vikram Jatav (24), all residents of Rajasthan, and Murari (42), a resident of Uttar Pradesh, they said.

A businessman registered a complaint alleging that he received a phone call from a person posing as inspector Vikram Rathore from Delhi Police's Crime Branch and extorted money on the pretext to block the complainant's obscene video on social media, police said.

The complainant said that earlier, he had received a video call from a girl on WhatsApp, who started an obscene video chat with him following which the extortion began, a senior police officer said.

Later, the accused persons called the complainant and said that the girl who had called him has committed suicide in Rajasthan and the matter has now become complicated and a murder case will be registered against him, the officer said.

The accused persons extorted a total of around Rs 5,79,500 from the complainant. They were demanding more money on the pretext of settlement with the family of the girl, police said.

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During the investigation, it was found that the gang was operating from Mewat and Bharatpur in Rajasthan. Police conducted a raid there and nabbed five accused persons, said Special Commissioner of Police (Crime), Ravindra Singh.

Raman is the main conspirator. Khurshid and Murari used to withdraw money from different ATMs and give it to Raman after keeping their commission. Raman was previously involved in a similar type of crime in Punjab, Singh said.

Jatav and Kaluram provided their bank accounts for receiving the extorted amount.

One car, Rs 1,40,000 cash, 15 ATM cards and four mobile phones were recovered from their possession, police added.

The gang members had also withdrawn Rs 4 crore from ATMs within six months from different bank accounts. A sextortion case of Rs 2.7 crore at Ahmedabad cyber police station has also been worked out, they said.

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