Two days after the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA), Patiala, arrested four women and two men for their involvement in a honey-trap/extortion racket, most of the victims are reluctant to approach the police.The police suspect that more than 50 men may have been blackmailed in the past year by creating fake profiles on Tinder, Facebook, and Bumble apps.Patiala SSP Varun Sharma said the gang members hailed from Patiala, Sangrur, Barnala, and Bathinda, while the victims belonged to Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh.Interestingly, the majority of the victims were middle-aged men who had money and were less likely to approach the police. “The targets were called to designated places in Patiala where they were honey-trapped. Two men posing as policemen would conduct a raid and accept a hefty amount of cash and valuables to settle the matter,” the police said.The Patiala Police are now trying to identify the victims through online transactions made to the accused.“The victims are from middle-class families and are unwilling to come forward and report the crime, given the nature of the case. However, we are trying our best to ensure that the entire amount is recovered from the gang members and they are brought to justice,” the SSP said.“These cybercriminals had created attractive profiles to lure people into compromising video calls and chats, only to blackmail them for money. In maximum cases, they would call the victims out for a meeting and get intimate and shoot the videos, only to later blackmail them. The two arrested men would pose as policemen and threaten to arrest and lodge an FIR if cash was not paid at the earliest,” SSP Sharma said.CIA Patiala in-charge Pardeep Singh Bajwa said the accused reportedly contacted individuals through social media, lured them into a relationship, and called them to designated locations. “We have recovered fake Punjab Police ID cards, a country-made weapon, and a cartridge from their possession. The gang would target men over 50 years old who had potentially more money and would be reluctant to approach the police,” he said.“The dating app rendezvous turned into a high-stakes robbery after innocent citizens’ hours of romance ended in a robbery. Now, our teams are trying to ascertain if the gang had more members and also if they invested the proceeds of crime,” the SSP said.Those arrested include Raj Kaur, Harleen Kaur, Gagagdeep Kaur Dhuri, Ravinder Kaur Grewal, Harbhajan Singh, and Lakhwinder Singh. The police said the initial probe shocked everyone, as the gang was present on almost all dating apps.The police have registered an FIR under Sections 308 (2), 126 (2), 127 (2), 351 (2), 235, 13561 (2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Arms Act against the accused.