Fake journalist, policemen held for extorting Rs 50,000 in Gurugram

Gurugram, June 16 (IANS) A team of Gurugram police has arrested a gang of three people for allegedly extorting Rs 50,000 from a person, posing as a fake police officer and fake journalist, police said.

One of the gang members was arrested on June 6, and is identified as Sunil.

The accused duo has been identified as Mohit Kumar Tonk (29), the fake journalist, and Devkinandan (37) the fake police officer, a resident of Jaipur Rajasthan, who was arrested from Jaipur, Rajasthan.

According to the police, the victim filed a complaint on June 4, that a person contacted him through a website and sought service from him.

The suspect called the complainant to Cyber Park Sector-39, Gurugram, and made him sit in a Swift DZire car. The suspects then introduced themselves as policemen and journalist and threatened to send him to jail for committing a cyber crime, police said.

The victim remained in the car, meanwhile, another person who introduced himself as a senior police officer, demanded Rs 1 lakh, the victim then transferred Rs 50,000 from his brother's account to the account mentioned by the suspects.

The accused threatened the victim of dire consequences if he revealed the matter to anyone, and asked him to arrange the remaining amount.

Following a complaint, a case was registered at the Sadar Police Station.

During the police probe, the accused revealed that Mohit used to work as a tourist guide in Jaipur about 09 years ago, he went to work in a disco, where he met Ibrahim Sheikh, the owner of Tehelka channel.

Due to his good command of the English language, he along with Ibrahim Shaikh started conducting sting operations on people of good status in Mumbai. It returned to Jaipur after the lockdown due to Covid in the year-2020, police said.

Thereafter he made a plan along with Devkinandan and Sunil for extortion through various websites (Rentman, Scoca, LockEnto, Gigello, Massage-Republic, etc.), targeting their victim and calling them to take service.

They would stay in one city for about 1 month and after committing the crime, they would go to another city and commit a crime there.

"The accused have revealed that they have carried out hundreds of incidents in different cities like Delhi, Jaipur, Belgaum, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, etc. The suspect also revealed that when the victim came to know about the fraud done by them and fearing police complaints the accused used to compromise the matter after giving them some amount to the victims," Varun Dahiya, ACP (crime) said.