A Police team from the Goverdhan Vilas Police station in Udaipur, arrested five people for allegedly extorting money after befriending people on a dating app.

Those arrested, were identified as Bhanu Pratap Singh (30), Satyam Singh (23), Mohit (20) all resident of Agra in Uttar Pradesh; Rahul Vyas (25) a residento of Karoli, Rajasthan and Amul Ahirwar (24) a resident of Kudela, Madhya Pradesh. SP Udaipur, Bhuvan Bhushan Yadav said that police acted on the information provided by a source. The informed told the Police that a goup of people were allegedly operating from a house at BDO Colony in Goverdhan Vilas.  The group has allegedly cheated people of approximately Rs 2 Lakh till now, as per reports. 9 Mobile Phones and one Tablet have been recovered from those arrested.

Modus Operandi

The accused would contact people through 'Dating' advertisements on Whatsapp and Instagram and lure them with a very low registration fee.  Once the individual was hooked on to their platform, the group would charge the fee for closing their deal and once the fee was received through PayTM of GPay, they would block the number of victim, informed the SP. The fee charged varied from Rs 400-700. They would also convince the victim, that once they were linked to a boy or girl as the case may be, the victim would receive a bonus of Rs 5000. Interestingly, those duped in this racket would not inform the police for the fear of being defamed.

SHO of the Goverdhan Vilas Police station informed that once the information on the location was made available from their informant, the team put in place one of their members as a bogus customer. This policeman connected with this group on social media and also paid them the requested fee of Rs 399 through a patment app. While doing this, the police team locked the location of the phone user and raided the said house.

The accused have been booked under under Section 420 and 406 of Indian Penal Code and are being interrogated. Interrogation will finally reveal the spread of their network and the number of people they have duped in this racket. Recovery of money is also a possibility.