YouTuber Bobby Kataria, who smoked cigarettes on a plane, arrested for human trafficking

Haryana Police on Monday arrested social media influencer Balwant Kataria alias Bobby Kataria for alleged human trafficking of two youths from Uttar Pradesh. Kataria was arrested following a joint raid at his residence in Sector 109 of Gurugram.

During the searches, several suspicious documents and a huge stash of cash were reportedly recovered. A case was registered against Kataria under section 370 (trafficking offence) of the IPC at Bajghera police station in Gurugram, police said.

Police action against YouTuber

The police action came after two youths from Uttar Pradesh lodged complaints that Karatia had trafficked them to Laos and forced them to participate in cyber fraud operations.

The complainants, Arun Kumar, a resident of Fatehpur and Manish Tomar, a resident of Hapur, said they were unemployed and contacted Kataria through Instagram.

According to the plaintiffs, they saw an advertisement about a job abroad on Bobby MBK's YouTube channel, after which they contacted the YouTuber via WhatsApp.

Bobby called them to meet his office in Sector 109 on the pretext of getting them a job in a foreign country. The complainant then met Kataria in her office on February 1, 2024 and paid Rs 2,000 for the registration.

After this, at the request of Bobby Kataria, on February 13, Rs 50,000 was transferred to his official account registered in the name of MBK Global Visa Private Limited.

Subsequently, on Bobby's instruction on March 14, another amount of Rs 1 lakh was transferred to the account of a person named Ankit Shaukeen.

Kataria sent the tickets to Vientiane (Laos) via Shaukeen's WhatsApp.

On March 28, as instructed by Bobby Kataria, Kumar converted Rs 50,000 into USD at the airport and boarded the flight to Vientiane.

Similarly, thousands of rupees were taken from his friend Manish Tomar on the pretext of sending him to Singapore, but he was also forced to take a flight to Vientiane.

When they both landed at Vientiane airport, they met a young man named Abhi, who described himself as a friend of Bobby Kataria and a Pakistani agent.

He dropped them off at the Mican Son hotel in Vientiane, where they found a young man named Ankit Shaukeen and Nitish Sharma alias Rocky. They took the victims to an unnamed Chinese company. There, the two friends were beaten and their passports were taken from them.

At the same time, they were forced to commit cyber fraud against American citizens. Both were threatened that if the work was not carried out according to their instructions, they would not be able to return to India and would be killed there.

“Around 150 Indians, including women, were brought into this business through human trafficking by brokers like Bobby Kataria, under the pretext of jobs. Somehow we escaped from there, reached the Indian embassy, ​​came back to India and filed a complaint against Kataria,” the complainant told the police.

Who is Bobby Kataria?

Karatia is not new to controversies. In 2022, an FIR was filed against him for allegedly posting lewd remarks about a woman on social media and threatening her.

ALSO READ: Instagram 'influencer' Bobby Kataria blocks Dehradun road to pour himself a drink and faces the music

The same year, he was arrested for allegedly smoking during a flight. Later, the bodybuilder was slammed again after a video of him went viral where he was seen drinking in the middle of the road in Uttarakhand.

(With IANS entries)

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