Jodhpur police busts sextortion racket while probing suicide case; 3 arrested

Interestingly, the extorted money was withdrawn by a single ATM machine located on a remote farm, which was used only by these criminals. One of the three identified criminals -- Rahul, Rahman, and Haider Ali -- had gotten the ATM installed about 70 km away from the place for which it was approved.

Jodhpur: The Jodhpur Railway Police while probing a suicide case, exposed a sextortion gang on Thursday after working on the case relentlessly for about one and a half months. Three people have been arrested in the matter so far, while the police have discovered a personal ATM, in a first, that the criminals used to withdraw the money extorted through their crimes.

As informed by Jodhpur GRP Superintendent of Police Pradeep Mohan Sharma, a person named Gopal Singh had committed suicide at the Jalsu station on August 26. The police had also recovered a suicide note from his body, wherein he had mentioned blackmailing by CBI officer Sanjay Arora and penned some contact numbers. A broken mobile phone was also recovered from the site, which further gave police clues into the matter, including screenshots that had details of the bank accounts to which the extorted money was transferred.

Interestingly, the extorted money was withdrawn by a single ATM machine located on a remote farm, which was used only by these criminals. One of the three identified criminals -- Rahul, Rahman, and Haider Ali -- had gotten the ATM installed about 70 km away from the place for which it was approved. The ATM belonged to a private bank and was availed for personal use only by Rahul and his accomplices.

Through the bank details recovered in the screenshots, the police officials traced the ATM and thereby arrested the three people involved in the crime. Informing more about the case, SP Pradeep Mohan Sharma said that the gang used to blackmail people by making fake pornographic films using their faces via video calls. Gopal Singh, also one of the victims of the sextortion gang, was duped of Rs 3-4 lakhs, owing to which he committed suicide.

The police officials took a sigh of relief after the arrests as they had been working on the case relentlessly for over the past month, teaming up with officials from other states as well. It was with the help of Bharatpur district police officials that the police managed to make the arrests. They are now investigating the matter further to get details about more victims of the gang.