Getting too many missed calls? Beware, it could be a honey trap
- Gangs are reportedly using women to make missed calls to lure men.
- The men are trapped using photographs or videos of them in compromising positions.
- Four people were arrested in Shivamogga for running a honey-trap gang.
FollowWith several incidents of rich people in Karnataka being honey-trapped after entering into relationships with women who made phone calls to them, police suspect a mafia is at work in the state.
Police officers explain that the modus operandi involves women giving a “missed call” to the victim and then following up with an apology. Repeated text messages and phone calls are used to befriend the victim, who is then caught in a compromising position. The perpetrators then use photographs and videos to extort money.
Recently, in Shivamogga, a businessman was forced to pay ₹25 lakh after a gang threatened him with a video of a sex tape involving him. In Shivamogga, the criminals first lured an economically desperate nurse and filmed her without her knowledge. The gang then used this footage to force her to cooperate. They then rigged hidden cameras in a rented room in the Godikoppa area of Shivamogga where they used the woman to entice rich businessmen from Shivamogga and Chikmagaluru.
Four persons — Prakash Gowda, Narendram, Vijesh and Sadashiva — have been arrested in connection with the Shivamogga case. Gowda was allegedly the mastermind. Gowda would reportedly collect phone numbers of businessmen and ask the woman to call them. Starting with missed calls, the woman quickly established relationships with some men in a few days’ time. After the victims had sex with the woman, Gowda would call them up and extort money; police suspect that he had trapped at least a dozen people.
Abhinav Khare, Shivamogga Superintendent of Police, said “The woman who was used in the honey trap case has complained against Gowda for raping her and threatening her.” Khare appealed to the public to beware of such calls.
In Bengaluru in 2014, a doctor working a private hospital at Vasanth Nagar was honey-trapped by a couple that used one of his patients. After repeated threats, the doctor complained to the High Grounds Police, who arrested the couple.
A “honey trap” of a very different nature was reported in Mangaluru in 2016. A businessman, Abdul Lateef, travelling in an auto was waylaid by a gang of seven people, who forcibly took photographs and videos of him with a group of women. The gang demanded ₹10 lakh from him and threatened that the women would lodge complaints of rape against him. Lateef filed a complaint with the Bantwal Police who arrested the accused.
