Representative image of arrest.
Credit: iStock Photo
Kushalnagar: Town Police arrested seven persons who were blackmailing people by wooing them into massage centre.
All the arrested are the natives of Hassan and were operating from Bengaluru, the police said.
Manjunath (29), C S Sandeep Kumar (25), C B Rakesh (24), K Jayalakshmi (29), S Sahana (19), Pallavi (30) and Abhishek (24) are the arrested.
The accused had created a mobile phone application link through which they would woo men for massage. When the men contacted the phone number, they would be asked to transfer money to a particular account and would further be asked to come to a hotel in Kushalnagar.
When the men went to the hotel, they would be blackmailed to shell out more money. Many of those who were cheated, did not volunteer to submit complaint, fearing slander.
The police informed that the accused operated from Nelamangala in Bengaluru and had created a fake GPS location.
The real location was traced, based on a complaint by a victim.
Two teams were formed to arrest the accused.
DySP Gangadharappa, Inspector B G Prakash, PSI H V Chandrashekhar, H T Geetha, police personnel Ranjith, Babu, Uday, Ramesh, Sunil, Shananth and technical personnel were part of the team which nabbed the accused.