Social Media Bait, Hotel Room Trap, Rape Threat: Inside the Honeytrap Gang Brought Down in Banswara

A five-member gang used social media to lure men to hotel rooms, then extorted money by threatening false rape cases.

Police in Banswara have arrested a woman accused of being part of a gang that lured men into a honeytrap scheme and then extorted money from them under threat of false rape allegations.

Officers from Banswara Kotwali police station detained the suspect — a resident of Kota — near the New Bus Stand. According to the station house officer, Budharam Vishnoi, the woman had previously coerced a victim into paying four lakh rupees in exchange for dropping a fabricated complaint filed under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

Four other members of the gang had already been arrested by Kota Rural Police. Those in custody include Abdul Firoz alias Ballu, son of Abdul Farid Ansari of Kanwas, Kota district; Yogendra Meena, 33, of Gainta Road, Itawa, Kota; Riyasat Ali alias Sonu, 30, of Kanwas, Kota district; and Rais Qureshi, 40, also of Kanwas, Kota district.

How the Scheme Operated

The female member of the gang would contact young men via social media and arrange to meet them at a hotel. She would then engage in sexual relations with the victim before subsequently threatening to report him for rape unless he paid a substantial sum. Fellow gang members would also telephone the victim to apply further pressure.

According to the complaint lodged against her, on 21 May the woman contacted a young man through an Instagram account, inviting him to Kota under the pretence of gym training. She met him at a hotel, where they had sexual relations, before leaving that same night on the excuse that her family had arrived.

She then told the victim that her family had found out and were pressuring her to go to the police. Shortly afterwards, Yogendra Meena rang the victim to raise the matter, followed by Riyasat Ali. Abdul Firoz alias Ballu then telephoned to apply further pressure, demanding fifteen lakh rupees to make the matter disappear.

Deal Struck, Then Gang Caught

The victim eventually agreed to pay three and a half lakh rupees and immediately reported the whole affair to Kota Rural Police. Officers arrested all four male suspects, though the woman managed to abscond. She was finally apprehended on Sunday. Constable Shyamaram Chaudhary played a particularly notable role in the operation.