Gurgaon 'influencer' detained in NIA police operation and charged with trafficking | Gurgaon News

GURGAON: Bodybuilder and 'influencer' Bobby, alias Balwant Kataria, was arrested by the Gurgaon police on Monday following a complaint filed by a youth from UP who claimed to have been trafficked to Laos after being promised a job in the United Arab Emirates by Kataria's consultancy firm.

According to the complaint, about 150 Indians whose passports were seized to threaten them to work at the call center of the Golden Triangle SEZ in northern Laos, which is part of a trijunction with Myanmar and the Thailand. Workers had to call foreigners, mostly Americans, and trick them into digital frauds.

A Chinese citizen allegedly operated the call center.

The complaint was filed less than two weeks after the Foreign Ministry announced that 13 Indians trafficked to Laos had been rescued. In April, 17 Indians were rescued from the country.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) said in a statement that Kataria was among five suspects arrested on Monday in a coordinated operation with police in all states.

“Manish Hingu from Vadodara, Pahlad Singh from Gopalganj, Nabialam Ray from southwest Delhi, Balwant Kataria from Gurgaon and Sartaj Singh from Chandigarh were arrested following a crackdown in 15 places in Maharashtra, UP, Bihar, Gujrat , Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh,” the statement read.

Eight new FIRs have been registered in connection with cases of “human trafficking involving forcible cyber crimes” across states, the NIA said.

The agency added that the accused were “involved in an organized trafficking syndicate engaged in luring and trafficking Indian youth to foreign countries on the basis of false promises of legal employment. The youth were forced to work in fake call centers in Laos, Golden Triangle SEZ and Cambodia… forced to undertake illegal activities online…”

Gurgaon police said they searched Kataria's office in Sector 109 and his house on Basai Road.

“We seized incriminating documents and around Rs 18 lakh in cash during searches. Kataria has been arrested. He will be produced before a court on Tuesday,” a senior police officer said.

Kataria (38), cops said, was booked under sections 370 (human trafficking), 364 (kidnapping with intent to commit murder), 342 (wrongful confinement), 346 (wrongful confinement in secret). ), 420 (cheating), 323 (voluntary detention). causing harm), 322 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. Provisions of the Immigration Act were also imposed.

The “influencer” has been indicted in at least three other cases in recent years. In 2017, Kataria was accused of extortion by a woman in Gurgaon. And in 2022, two lawsuits were filed against him: one for an Instagram video in which he was seen smoking inside an airliner, and another for a clip showing him drinking in the middle of a highway in Dehradun.

Gurgaon police said they took action after Arun Kumar, a job seeker from UP's Gopalganj, lodged a complaint at Bajghera police station in the city.

Kumar told police that he and a friend Manish, from UP's Dholana, approached Kataria in January this year after seeing advertisements on Instagram and YouTube of Kataria's company MBK Global Consultancy. The advertisements promised to find jobs for young people in foreign countries.

On February 1, Kumar reportedly met Kataria in Gurgaon and was promised a job in the UAE.

“I then transferred Rs 1.5 lakh to the accounts of MBK Global and Bobby’s friend Ankit Shaukin,” Kumar said.

Kumar and his friend were then given tickets to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and boarded the flight on March 28, according to the complaint. He said Manish transferred Rs 2.5 lakh to Kataria between January and March.

In Laos, a man named Abhi – who claimed to be a Pakistani citizen and a friend of Kataria – dropped the two young people off at a hotel and, the next day, asked them to board a train to Nateuy, in that country from Southeast Asia, the complaint states.

“At Nateuy station, Abhi took us a taxi to the Golden Triangle, where we were met by Ankit (Shaukin) and Nitish Sharma aka Rocky. They took us to an unnamed company run by a Chinese. They forcibly confiscated our passports and forced us to commit cyber fraud against American citizens by threatening to destroy our passports and kill us,” Kumar alleged.

Kumar and Manish managed to escape from the call center and returned to India after getting help from the Indian embassy in Laos.

The MEA, while announcing that 30 Indians had been rescued in April and May, also issued an advisory warning job seekers not to believe “fake agents” operating in Laos and Cambodia. “So far, the embassy has rescued 428 Indians from Lao PDR. We thank the Lao authorities for their cooperation,” the statement said.

TOI had reported earlier this month that almost half of the money lost in online frauds was attributable to cybercons in Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia.