The Halasuru Gate police on Saturday arrested a gang of four people for allegedly honeytrapping and extorting nearly ₹15 lakh from a 73-year-old businessman.
Among the accused is a 24-year-old man identified as Yuvaraj from Chikkamagaluru, who acted in a Kannada film recently.
According to the police, Yuvaraj hatched a plan and sent his female friend to the businessman, who befriended him and videographed their private conversation, using which they started blackmailing him.
Yuvaraj, posing as a CCB officer, then met the businessman on the pretext of inquiry into a complaint filed against him. He forced himself into his car and told him he was a police officer from the Crime Department and that there was a complaint against him from a woman.
Yuvaraj then showed the businessman the chat messages, photographs, and videos the businessman had exchanged with the woman and started threatening him to part with the money so that the chat messages, photographs and videos can be deleted and the case would not be pursued.
Over a period of a week — from August 3 to 10, Yuvaraj allegedly extorted ₹14.9 lakh from the businessman at least on three occasions. But when he demanded more money, suspecting that he was not a policeman, the businessman approached the police and filed a complaint of criminal conspiracy, extortion, cheating and criminal intimidation on Yuvaraj and the others.
Yuvaraj was running a gym equipment showroom at J.P. Nagar. He has been arrested, produced before a magistrate and remanded in judicial custody. The recovery of the extorted money is still under process, the police added.
