Get women to connect with wealthy men through dating apps, chat over video calls, record them, file false harassment complaints, and extort crores in the name of a settlement - the plan of a sextortion syndicate operating from Maharashtra was well-laid out and seemed flawless, until it was not.
The Nagpur Police busted the racket run by 35-year-old Aditya Gupta that targeted wealthy men through dating applications such as Mika and others. Gupta was arrested on Wednesday.
According to the police, Gupta would approach vulnerable young women in need of money to carry out the crime. He would offer them Rs 4 lakh or more, make their profiles on dating apps to target wealthy men and carry out the extortion.
The syndicate was busted when Gupta tried to extort a staggering Rs 3 crore from the latest man who fell victim to his crime. The police found over 400 explicit videos of women and are investigating the extent of the crime.
Mastermind Lived In Five-Star Hotels, Left His Family
Gupta, the mastermind of the racket, hails from Agra and was living in Pune during his arrest. Five years ago, he left his family and disappeared, later moving to Maharashtra where he started the crime ring.
He was allegedly connected with leaders and bureaucrats and lived a lavish life - driving luxury cars and staying in five-star hotels. He even used a morphed photo with senior political leaders as his WhatsApp profile picture to give the impression of being well connected.
He faced a theft case filed by his own brother in Agra.
The Dating App Trap
According to police, Gupta ran an incredibly calculated operation. He would seek out educated, struggling, or needy young women, including engineers and working professionals and lure them into his gang by offering large sums of money, ranging from Rs 4 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.
Under his instructions, these women created profiles on Mika and other popular dating applications to attract wealthy men. Once contact was established, the women would engage the men in intimate video calls and secretly record the footage.
Gupta would then step in. Armed with the recorded video calls, he would approach the police, pretending to "help" the young women as an influential legal adviser and social activist.
Citing strict women's protection laws, he would pressure the police to register FIRs of sexual harassment and rape against the wealthy targets. Once the FIR was filed, the negotiations began, where he demanded crores of rupees to "settle" the matter and withdraw the complaints.
How Police Busted The Syndicate
Gupta's eagerness to "help" the women in such cases became his undoing. The Nagpur Police grew suspicious of him due to his over-active involvement in the cases.
To bust him, the police initially pretended to cooperate with him. They then reached out to Gupta's latest victim, a man named Irfan who was named in one such case, and brought him to Nagpur.
The police uncovered the entire blackmail plot after taking Irfan into confidence.
After arresting Gupta, cops seized his mobile phone and discovered over 400 explicit videos of various young women.
Police are now investigating how many women were used as pawns in this syndicate and how many victims across major cities like Delhi, Pune, and Nagpur were blackmailed.
Currently, two active cases have been registered against Gupta in Nagpur, and details of cases registered by him in other metropolitan cities are being gathered.
"We have arrested the accused, Aditya Gupta, who was running an extremely sophisticated blackmailing racket using dating applications. We have recovered over 400 explicit videos from his phone. A thorough investigation is underway to trace the entire scale of this syndicate," said Rahul Madane (IPS), Nagpur's Deputy Commissioner of Police.