Extortion from escort service providers: 2 held

LUCKNOW: The city police on Tuesday busted a gang involved in robbing and extorting money from flesh trade racketeers after asking them to provide escort services. The gang members used to hold the escort service mediators captive when they approached them to provide the services and extort money by posing as Bihar and Delhi police officers.

The police arrested two key operators of the gang, Anil Kumar Singh and Rahul Sinha alias Rahul Anand, both residents of Bihar, from Chinhat area. The police also recovered Bihar and Delhi police badges, wireless sets and handcuffs from the key operators’ car.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP), Lucknow, Deepak Kumar said the victims never complained about the matter to police as they themselves are in the wrong business and the key operators took advantage of it. He said the two operators along with their third crime partner, Amit Kumar Singh have extorted money from multiple people in the same manner in past one year. He said Amit is still at large and efforts are on for his arrest.

Explaining the gang’s modus operandi, the SSP said the duo used to get contact numbers of different escort services operational in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from the internet and approached them as clients.

He said the gang members used to hold the mediators hostage when they met them on ‘service request’ and threatened to book them in human trafficking charges by posing as police officers. “The escort service providers easily believed their claims after seeing their police badges, wireless sets and handcuffs,” he said.

The SSP said the gang’s modus operandi was exposed when they recently held a wrong man hostage believing him as escort service provider and extorted ₹1 lakh from him. He said the victim had lodged an FIR of kidnapping and extortion against them with Chinhat police station on October 11.

Kumar said the two arrested accused had criminal record and they are involved in multiple incidents of loot and robbery .

He said the two met each other during their stay in a Delhi jail. He said Rahul got released from jail in 2015 after serving fouryears of term while Anil was released from jail in 2016.

He said the duo then met again and devised new ways to commit crime.

THE GANG USED TO POSE AS COPS AND THREATEN MEDIATORS, SAYING THEY WOULD BE BOOKED FOR HUMAN TRAFFICKING