The Jangipur police in Murshidabad district have arrested three members of a gang allegedly involved in a WhatsApp racket from Rajasthan’s Bharatpur late last week.

A local businessman and a bank employee had lodged police complaints on September 29, alleging that they had repetitively been scammed of amounts ranging between Rs 2,000 and Rs 5,000 by a fake WhatsApp profile. Acting on the complaints, a police team led by assistant superintendent of police, Sandip Karra, arrested Shabbir, Rajpal Singh and Chiranjit Singh from Bharatpur in Rajasthan on Friday.

The trio were brought on transit remand from Bharatpur and produced at a local court in Jangipur on Monday. They have been sent to police custody for a week.

Explaining the gang’s modus operandi, a member of the investigating team said that they used to trap their victims by becoming friends on Facebook. “They used to pose as women and contact the victims via Facebook and then access the their phone number and contact them through WhatsApp. They used to lure the victims by sending obscene images and then blackmail them for extortion. Their phone numbers were associated with fake image of a woman,” the officer said. He mentioned that the extortion amount would range from Rs ,2000 to Rs 5,000 every month.

“We tracked the culprits through the bank accounts where the complainants had transferred cash,” the officer added.

Jangipur police chief Y. Raghuvamshi on Monday said: “This is a nationwide scam. We have recovered devices with over 570 inappropriate images, 75 videos and 100 phone numbers, all of which were used to blackmail targets. People should be alert and avoid interacting with such unknown numbers.”