BENGALURU: Kothanur police have arrested a gang of five persons, including three women, on charges of extorting people by honey-trapping. The prime accused is a woman who used to contact random businessmen over phone and tell them that a young girl is available.The arrested women are Shahin (40), Noori alias Shama (35) and Salma Parvin (27), all residents of Hegdenagar. Also arrested are Sajid Sheikh (38) and Shabbir Sharif (30), who are residents of KG Halli. Two other accused Saleem and Mental Asif of Shivajinagar are still at large.
A senior police officer said based on a complaint by a resident of DJ Halli, a special team was formed to nab the gang. “During the investigation, we found that the prime accused Shahin used to contact random businessmen and realtors to lure them into accepting sexual favours from a young girl. Noori and Salma used to bring such customers to Shahin’s house during the day. Once the costumers engaged in a sexual act, Sajid and Syed would barge inside and shoot a video in their mobile phones,” the officer said.
They used to threaten the customers at knife-point when they tried to hide their faces when the act was being recorded. Later they used these videos to blackmail them and demand money threatening them of filing a police complaint and showing the video to their family members and upload it in social networking sites.
“The gang extorted `50,000 from Syed and later demanded some more money from him leading him to approach the police. The accused used a similar modus operandi to extort money from businessmen across the city. Four other incidents came to light with their arrest. The police booked the gang under abduction, blackmail, extortion and robbery,” the officer said.
Arrested operated a brothel
Shahin’s husband had passed away three years ago. After that she got into a relationship with Sajid, a history-sheeter. They were running a brothel in Hegdenagar and had rented a house belonging to an auto-driver. The auto-driver was not aware of the crime till the police raided the house on Wednesday. The duo planned the honey-trap scam to make easy money. Further investigations are on to find some other victims who might have been extorted by the gang, the police said.