BENGALURU: A 29-year-old IT professional working in a private firm in Electronics City was extorted Rs 8.1 lakh after booking an escort service on an online portal.
Gautham (name changed), a resident of Electronics City, got the number of a call girl, Amrutha Gill, on massagerepublic.com. He called her who introduced herself as Roopa, aka Kushi, aka Sonia. He booked her for three hours for Rs 15,000.
Gautham booked a room in a hotel on Residency Road on Nov 29. Roopa visited him around 6:15pm but he realised that she was in her 30s and not 18 years old as she had claimed earlier.
He paid Roopa Rs 16,000 including Rs 1,000 for cab fare through a digital payment app, after which she claimed to be a police officer in mufti and had come to arrest him. Meanwhile, Gautham received a WhatsApp audio call and the display picture of the number showed a person in a khaki uniform. The caller introduced himself as Hitesh Kumar, an “IPS officer” and colleague of the woman who was with him.
Roopa snatched Gautham’s phone and put the call on speaker mode. Kumar told Gautham that he was under digital arrest. Gautham told TOI, “Kumar initially demanded Rs 10 lakh not to arrest me. I told him that I didn’t have so much money. He threatened to physically drag me to police station.”
Roopa forcibly took from him a credit card and details of two other credit cards and transferred over Rs 8.1 lakh to various accounts in multiple installments.
As the extortion continued till 8.30pm, Gautham told Roopa that they should go to the police station to sort out the issue. She came to the reception. He explained to hotel staff about the extortion and asked them to call the police helpline 112. When they were calling, she cut their call and ran out, he said.
Once on the road, she stripped and claimed that Gautham misbehaved with her and sought help from passersby. She bit Gautham’s hand and tried to escape but by then cops reached the spot and detained her.
On seeing police, Roopa acted as if she was falling unconscious. But within a minute, she climbed into the police vehicle.
Police helped Gautham call the 1930 cyber helpline and freeze the accounts to which his money was transferred. An Aadhaar card on Roopa’s person put her age at 31 and identified her as Pooja.
A senior police officer said Roopa was arrested and taken into police custody.