This new find, involving multiple players with excellent technique, makes for a smooth operation. It is a modus operandi involving tricking men on the apps into thinking they are talking to a lady who is interested in them.
Still, in asking for money for bail or hospital fees and other expenses, they reveal themselves as fake police officers in Delhi. It entails, for instance, leading the victims to a particular cafe, making them pay a heinous amount of money, or else being threatened with dire consequences.
The episode was discovered when a man, catfished by a woman going by the name Versha, whom he met on Tinder, arrived at the Black Mirror Cafe in East Delhi to celebrate her birthday, which he thought was real. Thus, although the evening was planned to be a “date” successful, positive impressions, Versha had a “family emergency” and had to leave immediately.
He ordered and ate the food and then asked for the bill. To his dismay, the bill amounted to ₹1,21,917. 70, which is a lot more than the actual cost of the ordered items. When he objected to the bill, he was threatened and detained, and twenty-five dollars were extracted from him, which he had to pay to one of the cafe owners, Akshay Pahwa, online.
The police established during the investigation that the cafe has two partners, Pahwa and Grover, while Ansh Grover is the third boss. The so-called “table managers,” such as a 25-year-old Class 7 drop-out Aryan, would pose as women on various dating applications to bait unsuspecting male members into the cafe.
Officials reveal that this well-planned fraud is not restricted to Delhi-NCR only and such frauds across the major metros are in operation. The investigation is ongoing, though much is being done to apprehend the other accused persons.
