Shivpuri (MP), February 21 Police have arrested 20 members of an inter-state gang for allegedly extorting crores by running a sextortion-cum-digital extortion racket, which was mainly operated from the Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh, an officer said on Saturday.
Assets, including smartphones and four-wheelers, valued at Rs 1.07 crore have been seized under "Operation Matrix".
According to police, the gang used dating and chatting applications to target unsuspecting individuals.
"Acting on the directions of Gwalior zone Inspector General Arvind Kumar Saxena and Deputy Inspector General Amit Sanghi, nine special teams conducted raids in the areas of Karera, Bhonti and Pichhore in Shivpuri and apprehended the accused," Superintendent of Police Aman Singh Rathore told reporters here.
He said four FIRs were registered in the last week, naming 32 accused, of whom 20 have been arrested so far.
Those arrested include Angad Lodhi, Vishal Lodhi, Sukhdev, Arjun and Deepak Prajapati, among others. Most of the accused are residents of Shivpuri and Jhansi regions, he said, adding that efforts were on to trace 12 absconding members of the gang.
He said the accused would create fake WhatsApp accounts in the names of women to engage victims in obscene chats and recordings.
"They later posed as police officers and threatened the victims with false cases of rape and child pornography to extort money," the police officer said.
During the operation, police seized seven four-wheelers, 29 smartphones, Rs 1.20 lakh in cash, ATM cards, and bank passbooks. The total value of the seized property has been estimated at around Rs 1.07 crore.
Sextortion is extortion in which a perpetrator threatens to expose sexually compromising information, such as sexually explicit private images or videos of the victim, if certain demands are met.
Appealing to the public to remain cautious, Rathore said people should not answer video calls from unknown numbers and should immediately contact the local police or the cyber helpline if they receive any "digital arrest" threat.