COIMBATORE: A gang of seven people, including six from Tamil Nadu, who were staying in Navi Mumbai and using honey traps to extort people was arrested by Coimbatore City Cybercrime police recently.
The arrested were identified as A Afzal Rahman (24) of Mumbai, V Vignesh Veeramani (25) from Villupuram, and remaining R Karnan (24), S Tamilarasan (23), A Manikandan (22), M Jayasurya Pandian (25) and S Premkumar (33) all from Pollachi in Coimbatore.
They were employed by Afzal Rahman and operated out of a apartment in Sector 19, Ulwe in Navi Mumbai. According to police, a 21-year-old college student in Coimbatore saw an advertisement for partners on a website on October 15, 2022, and contacted the number mentioned in the advertisement.
A person, who introduced himself as Kumar, assured him to arrange escort and massage services at a hotel in Coimbatore city. Then the student was made to pay Rs 7.84 lakh on various occasions towards advance, room service, safety arrangement, etc. Finally, he realised that he was cheated and upset over the loss, complained to the City Cybercrime police.
Based on his complaint a case was booked under sections 420 IPC and 66D of the IT Act. During investigation, police retrieved the banking details to which the youth sent money, the mobile number from which the scammers contacted him, the website through which they lured and IP detail.
Cybercrime police traced the whereabouts of the scammers at Navi Mumbai a month ago and the police busted the gang two days ago. After producing them at the court in Mumbai, the police team brought the gang to Coimbatore on Saturday. Following the preliminary investigation, they were remanded to prison on Sunday, according to the police sources.
As many as 34 mobile phones, 36 sim cards, 19 ATM cards, 12 bank passbooks, four chequebooks, Internet routers, connectors and adaptors were seized from them and ` 8.49 lakh which was found in their bank accounts were also frozen, said police.
The gang had hired a flat at an apartment for Rs 32,000 monthly rent and posed as engaged in import & export business. They spent the money on a lavish life. While they lured many on the pretext of escort services, they used the bank accounts of a few youngsters for money transactions. The gang collected the banking credentials from them on assuring to offer income in the flesh trade, said police sources.