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Days after four men have been arrested by the Gautam Buddh Nagar police for their alleged involvement in planting hidden cameras at a hotel linked to OYO Rooms to blackmail couples, the firm is reportedly carrying out an internal probe into the matter.
While OYO did not issue any official comment, sources at the company clarified that hotels are not associated with the company but are merely listed on its platform. Further, they said they were carrying out an internal probe into the incident, which had also been requested by the owner of the hotel who was reportedly distressed by the incident.
Police identified the accused as Vishnu Singh, Abdul Wahav, Pankaj Kumar and Anurag Kumar.
According to police, the modus operandi of the main accused, Singh and Wahav, was to book rooms in the hotel and plant cameras to record couples. They would then obtain their social media profiles and contacts and send them the videos, with a threat to release the videos if they didn’t pay up. If this did not work, they would threaten the couples with violence. Sources said the cameras were planted in such a way that cleaning staff would not notice them.
Ram Badan Singh, DCP (Central Noida), said: “The two accused had recorded several couples. If we receive a complaint in this regard, we will register cases with regard to those as well. They had been carrying out the extortion scheme for about a month. Currently no criminal history of Singh and Wahav has been found; the same is also being probed further.”
On how the accused managed to locate their victims’ contact information, DCP Singh said, “We will not disclose the same as future criminals may take advantage of these methods as well.” Police have said hotel staff are not currently suspected in the matter.
Police said SIM cards and a bank account used for the extortion was provided to Singh and Wahav by two others, Pankaj and Saurabh, for Rs 15,000. They had provided a similar service to the fourth accused, Anurag, who had set up three illegal call centres. Saurabh is currently absconding.
ADCP (Central Noida) Saad Miya Khan had said, “We received information that a person recently stayed in a room with his female friend and, a few days later, a video of their private moment was sent to him along with demands for money. The accused had booked the same room a few days earlier and had installed the camera. Whenever a couple was seen on the camera, they would profile them and send them their intimate videos on their social media accounts and phones.”
A case has been filed at Noida’s Phase 3 Police Station under IPC sections 420 (cheating) 386 (extortion by fear of death/grievous hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation). Police also seized 11 laptops, seven CPUs, 21 mobiles, 22 ATM cards as well as other electronic paraphernalia from the accused.
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