Aspiring civil servant caught in honey trap on dating app forced to shell out Rs 1.2 lakh, Delhi Police arrest honchos

A civil services aspirant was forced to shell out over Rs 1 crore at an East Delhi cafe after his Tinder date turned out to be a conspiracy to lure and scam men looking for love and companionship. The victim of the scam, who remains unidentified, met a woman named Versha on the dating app Tinder and was cheated of Rs 1,21,917.70 after the date.

The incident took place at Black Mirror Cafe in Vikas Marg area of ​​East Delhi. The victim was there with his online girlfriend Versha to celebrate her birthday. Everything was going well until Versha had to leave for a family emergency.

Soon after Versha left, the victim called for the bill and was shocked to see that she was being charged ₹1,21,917.70 for food and drinks, which was barely a few thousand rupees .

The duo had ordered snacks, two cakes and soft drinks.

He disputed the bill, but the cafe owners threatened him, held him captive and forced him to pay. He transferred the money online to one of the cafe owners.

One of the owners, according to the channel NDTV The first to report the development was Akshay Pahwa, 32, a resident of Shahdara in east Delhi who studied till Class 10.

Once freed from the clutches of Akshay Pahwa and his cronies – Ansh Grover, Vansh Pahwa, Aryan and Digranshu – he went straight to the police and lodged a complaint.

Inspector Sanjay Gupta of Delhi Police led a four-member team and started investigating the case. He quickly took Akshay Pahwa into his custody.

Operating mode

Akshay told the police that Black Mirror Cafe belonged to him, Ansh Grover and Vansh Pahwa.

Even though he and Vansh were related, Ansh was a friend. They said that they employed ‘table managers’. Aryan, an unemployed college dropout, was one of these table managers. Digranshu, another person named by Akshay, is the manager of these ‘table managers’.

Versha turned out to be Afsan Parveen, 25, who also uses aliases like Ayesha and Noor.

The police also tracked her down after arresting Akshay Pahwa and finding her on a ‘date’ with a man from Mumbai whom she had met on Shaadi.com at another cafe.

She revealed their modus operandi to the police.

Aryan reached out to the victim posing as Versha. He shared his photo using the single view mode feature and invited him to Laxmi Nagar on June 23 to celebrate his birthday.

She pretended to deal with a family emergency and rushed out. This was all planned in advance and within hours of leaving, her appointment was hit with an outrageous bill.

Sharing the spoils

Several people have fallen victim to these Tinder dating scams in many megacities. Residents of Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad were extorted by scammers, police officials told the channel.

In the case of the civil services aspirant, the woman named Afsan Parveen alias Versha, told the police that each player had a share. 15% of the money taken from unsuspecting men is given to Mrs. Parveen, 45% is distributed among the table and cafe managers and the remaining 40% goes to the owners.

These programs rely on seamless collaboration between cafe owners, managers and others who reach out to “good” men on dating apps, NDTV according to the report.

“Table managers” create fake profiles on these apps to lure men into cafes. Once there, the men are charged excessive prices for food and drinks. If they refuse to pay, they are threatened, assaulted or detained until they comply, police told the station.

They further added that they had arrested Parveen and Pahwa, confiscated their phones and the café’s cash register. They said the investigation was on and efforts were on to apprehend the other suspects, while adding that other men had not reported such incidents due to social stigma.