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A 38-year-old Mumbai-based man, Pankaj Yadav, who runs an NGO ‘Yuva Pratishthan’, helped expose a dating app extortion racket after posing as a victim and coordinating with the police to catch the accused in the act.
According to his account, he had matched with a young woman named “Mahima” on a dating app, who quickly moved the conversation to WhatsApp and insisted on meeting in Saki Naka.
During their meeting at a café, she reportedly ordered multiple drinks in quick succession while continuing to chat casually. However, Pankaj later revealed that he had gone there as part of a planned operation to uncover the scam, Indian Express reported.
He said he decided to act after a friend told him about being duped and threatened by a similar gang operating through dating apps. Along with members of his organisation, he began tracking suspicious patterns, noting that targets were often asked to meet urgently at the same location.
Once the meeting with the woman was fixed, Pankaj informed the police. Acting on this, a team led by Deputy Commissioner of Police Datta Nalawade coordinated a raid at the café.
During the operation led by Inspector Bandgar and his 15-member team, officers reportedly found another victim being coerced into paying ₹25,000 after being lured there through a dating app.
Police investigations suggested that the café staff, along with several others, were involved in the racket. The modus operandi involved women inviting men to the café, placing large orders, and then forcing the men to pay inflated bills. Authorities also found that the liquor served was allegedly fake.
During questioning, the woman accompanying Pankaj was found to be using a fake identity and was reportedly from Delhi.
Police further uncovered that the operation was being coordinated by two individuals based in Delhi, identified as Shoaib and Azim Siddiqui, who allegedly managed the scam through WhatsApp.
Investigators indicated that the scheme involved multiple women brought from Delhi and nearby regions, who were assigned targets after initial conversations—often conducted by male gang members posing as women on dating apps. Once a meeting was fixed, the chat would be shifted off the app to erase evidence.
Police registered an FIR against 13 individuals on charges including cheating, criminal conspiracy, intimidation, and running an illegal establishment, and arrested 11 people during the raid. They are now examining digital evidence and CCTV footage to identify more victims.
Those arrested so far include Kataria, Didoria, Khan, Kumar, Faizal Ali (27), Deepak Das (37) and Sahil Kushwaha (19).
Officials believe the racket may have duped hundreds of people, though only a small number have come forward so far.
They added that the scam extended across multiple platforms, including popular dating applications such as Tinder, Bumble, Happn, TrulyMadly, QuackQuack and OkCupid and even matrimonial websites like Shaadi.com and Jeevansathi.
Authorities are continuing their investigation into the scale of the operation, its financial gains, and whether similar setups exist elsewhere. Pankaj described the racket as a calculated system that exploited loneliness and trust to manipulate victims.