Thane: Police held three men and women for honey trapping shopkeeper

Police have arrested three men and a woman for allegedly honey trapping a man running an optical shop in Maharashtra's Thane city and extorting Rs 6.9 lakh from him, an official said.

The accused woman visited the shop in Shri Nagar locality in September last year and befriended the shopkeeper. She then gained his sympathy and extracted some money from him, a police spokesperson said in a release. 

On April 1, 2023, the woman called the shopkeeper to Thane Check Naka under the pretext of some work and asked him to help her buy some clothes. While the shopkeeper was taking her to a nearby shop on a scooter, the woman's husband spotted them and threatened him. 

Thereafter, the woman's husband along with two other men allegedly blackmailed the shopkeeper by threatening to circulate on social media some video clips showing him with the woman, the police said.

He also threatened the shopkeeper that he would file a police complaint against him on the charge of molesting his wife. The accused allegedly extracted a total of Rs 6.9 lakh from him from time-to-time, the official said.

The woman's husband later asked for Rs 50,000 more from the shopkeeper following which the latter filed a police complaint on Saturday, he said. The Shri Nagar police laid a trap on Sunday and arrested the four accused.