A man has been arrested for allegedly cheating and blackmailing another man posing as a woman on a dating app, police said.

The accused allegedly used cosmetics and wigs to look like a woman while talking to his victim on video calls, the police said.

Bidhannagar police arrested him on Sunday based on the victim’s complaint.

The police identified the accused as Wasim Ali, a resident of Rajarhat.

He allegedly used to trap men through a dating app and coax them to chat with him on video calls, an officer of Bidhannagar police said.

“Ali would change his appearance and modulate his voice to sound like a woman. He would initiate an intimate video chat and then take screen shots of the chat. He would later use those pictures to blackmail his victims,” the police officer said.

In this case, the complainant had befriended Ali thinking she was a girl.

Earlier this month, Ali called him to a place in Rajarhat.

“When the victim reached the spot, Ali showed him some intimate pictures of their video chat and demanded money. The victim was forced to part with ₹28,000 which he had with him at that moment,” said the police officer.

The victim filed a complaint against the “woman” at Rajarhat police station.

During the investigation, the police found that the accused was not a woman but a man. He had been posing as a woman for quite sometime on the dating app, trying to trap men.

The police raided Ali’s house in Rajarhat and found make-up kits, wigs and cosmetics that, officers suspect, were used to pose as a woman.

“Prima facie it appears that Ali had trapped a number of men and blackmailed them,” a police officer said.

“Most of his victims did not seek police help because of the stigma attached,” said the officer.