Honey-trapping extortionists busted
NEW DELHI: Adult dating sites can be less honey and more trap — a pilot with a private airline will swear an oath on that.
The pilot, a young Delhi native whose name is withheld to protect his privacy, was among more than 100 gullible friendship-seekers targeted by a gang of extortionists in the past two years.
The group — home guards Jagtinder Singh, 47, and Sunder Lal, 35, and their 32-year-old accomplice Jitender — used two pretty honey traps, police said. The men were arrested on July 6, but the women are on the run.
One of the two women contacted the pilot on the very day he signed up on a popular dating site last October and invited him for a date after a week-long online chat.
The date was fixed and he met the woman, called Siya on adultfriendfinder.com, at M2K Cinema Complex in northwestern Delhi’s Rohini. After a movie, she insisted they go to her place.
Excited, he accepted the invitation, without an inkling of doubt he has been sucked into an elaborate honey trap that will cost him a fortune — `9.7 lakh. She picked up a friend on the way and sneaked out of the house on some pretext later. Left alone, the other woman seduced the pilot, who too was more than willing to oblige.
But just when they were getting intimate, two “crime branch inspectors” barged in.
The “undercover officers” told the pilot they have specific information of a man trying to rape a woman in the house and that he has been caught redhanded.
By then Siya reappeared, and the “cops” took the two women for a medical examination at a government hospital in Rohini. They threatened all along to press rape charges against the pilot unless he paid `20 lakh.
“The pilot gave `120,000 to the men but they kept insisting on `20 lakh. After prolonged negotiations, they finally agreed to take `10 lakh,” said Vijay Singh, the deputy commissioner of police, Northwest district.
The imposters told the pilot the case will be heard in court, but they will save him.
He paid `9.7 lakh in installments, but the men called the pilot again in March and demanded `2 lakh. They said the woman might spill the beans in court and they need money to buy her out.
The pilot had enough of the blackmail and approached police, finally.
He was informed there’re no such cops in Delhi Police’s crime branch. Investigators used stakeouts outside close to a rented flat at Budh Vihar where the honey trap was laid and, with much stealth, arrested three men from there.
Jagtinder Singh said each gang member had a specific role. Tech-savvy Jitender, who is good at computers, used to engage affluent date-seekers with a text chat through an ID that carried the picture of beautiful women. Once the trap is set, the women decoys would take over.