Five youngsters, including two engineers and a minor, were arrested recently from four states for allegedly running a pan-India sex and extortion racket. They filmed men in the buff, extorted money from them and sold the obscene videos on the internet. Actors from films and television as well as models were among their targets.
The group had clips of about 250 men and stashed its earnings in accounts in different parts of India and Nepal. The police have traced around Rs. 30 lakh of their earnings, some routed through digital wallets operated under fake identities. The criminals were picked up by the Bombay cyber police from Maharashtra, Orissa, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh.
An FIR was filed on June 5 and the probe went on for more than a month.