Honey-trap racket under lens as police take cyber fraudster into custody | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: A local court has granted custody of 23-year-old alleged cyber fraudster K Pavan Kumar to the Saidabad police in connection with a blackmail and extortion case involving multiple victims.The police took Pavan into custody on Monday after the court allowed his remand till 11 am on Oct 29. He was arrested on Oct 19 following a complaint by a 22-year-old engineering student who alleged that Pavan had extorted nearly ₹4 lakh since 2024 by threatening to circulate his private videos online.Investigators suspect that several victims may have fallen prey to a sophisticated online honey-trap and blackmail racket allegedly run by Pavan.In a separate complaint, a woman alleged that Pavan deceived her husband by posing as a woman named Chandana on social media.“Pavan misled my husband by assuring him that he would arrange his marriage with Chandana. Using social media chats, he blackmailed my husband and extorted about ₹10 lakh from him. Pavan also prevented my husband from meeting the family,” the complainant alleged.According to the police, Pavan, an unemployed polytechnic diploma dropout from Kukatpally, created 13 fake Instagram accounts and 14 fake Facebook accounts, most of them using obscene photographs of unsuspecting women under the name Chandana.Posing as a woman, he allegedly initiated conversations with men, steered the chats towards sexually explicit content and later blackmailed them using the material exchanged.Hyderabad police commissioner VC Sajjanar said the accused had interacted with more than 1,000 people from different states and varied professions, including police personnel.Police investigations revealed that Pavan had allegedly collected nude photographs and videos of at least 82 persons and used them to extort money.“We will interrogate him in police remand to gather more details about his activities,” Sajjanar said.Police are now probing the full extent of the alleged blackmail network and are examining whether more victims were targeted through the fake social media profiles.