Scores of corporate executives, CEOs in India caught up in ‘honey trap’ blackmail operation on gay dating app
FILE PHOTO. © Reuters / Aly Song
At least 50 Indian business executives based in New Delhi were tricked into an elaborate extortion set-up, ‘honey trapped’ on LGBT dating app Grindr and then blackmailed with their own intimate, and often embarrassing, photos.
Targeting wealthy individuals in Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, and Ghaziabad, a gang of extortionists sought to bilk everything from cash, laptops, and watches from the corporate bigwigs, among them CEOs. Some 150 people fell victim to the enterprise, not all of them businessmen.
“Around 50 executives of top multinational companies in Delhi-NCR have been duped and robbed,” said Gurugram police commissioner Muhammad Akil, noting that the victims, “fearing social stigma,” were not prepared to take legal action against the culprits, even refusing to make statements to police.
In most cases, after meeting with their hoax ‘dates’ in remote locales under the guise of a romantic rendezvous, the victims were then ambushed, beaten, robbed, and photographed in the nude, with the perpetrators keeping the photos in hopes of extorting additional valuables.
“It took them almost a month to get friendly with the victims and once they gained [the victims’] confidence and assured them that their identities were safe, they set up meetings,” Akil went on.
The commissioner said that law enforcement had been in touch with Grindr in hopes of learning more about the blackmail gang. While the group was caught in the act last November after an officer posed as a hapless victim, resulting in the arrest of four men, two other suspects remain at large.
One victim, a 38-year-old business executive based in Gurugram, just outside Delhi, described his ordeal to the Hindustan Times, though requested not to be named.
“I downloaded the application just weeks before the incident in October. I met this person online and talked to him for 11 days; he said he wanted to meet me. I agreed,” the executive said. “I insisted that we should have drinks and food in a restaurant but he suggested that we go for a long drive.”
After driving for around 45 minutes, the perpetrator “initiated intimacy,” the victim said, “but within minutes another car intercepted my car and they forced open the car door and assaulted and robbed me. The man posing as my friend joined them and fled the spot.”
Soon after the encounter, the victim said he began getting calls demanding a payment of 200,000 rupees ($2,800), at which point he changed his phone number, later bringing the situation to the police on the advice of a friend.
Upon questioning by law enforcement, the four members arrested in November admitted to pulling the same set-up on around 150 people in the space of three months, 80 of which have been tracked down so far by police, who are still investigating the series of crimes.
Canadian hero with a secret
..
Darby Allen, the fire chief who led Fort McMurray, Alta., out of danger in 2016,
but few knew he had been fired for sexual harassment in Calgary years earlier
but few knew he had been fired for sexual harassment in Calgary years earlier
By Meghan Grant
Fort McMurray fire Chief Darby Allen applauds as he walks with first responders from Fort McMurray, Alta.,
during the Calgary Stampede parade in Calgary on July 8, 2016. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
during the Calgary Stampede parade in Calgary on July 8, 2016. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
It was one of dozens of interviews given by Fort McMurray fire Chief Darby Allen as wildfires raged over the spring and summer of 2016 and the northern Alberta city was evacuated.
A 24-hour news channel hummed like white noise as Liz, five months pregnant at the time, puttered around her kitchen.
Before she saw his face, Liz heard Allen's voice and began to cry.
"It just brought me back to a time when I was very young and naive and destroyed."
Allen led the evacuation of the city of nearly 90,000, making headlines as a hero for weeks, months, even years to come.
After the Fort McMurray wildfire, Darby Allen was hailed as a hero. Here he is on the Nov. 1, 2016, front page of the Edmonton Journal hugging Premier Rachel Notley.
Even early on in the crisis, Allen had become a respected national figure — known as a calm, compassionate and courageous leader.
To Liz, he was the man who'd tormented her for years.
Back in the early 2000s, she was an employee at the Calgary Fire Department and he was a much older senior officer who sometimes supervised her directly.
A statement of claim filed by Liz in 2018 alleges Allen routinely made sexually explicit comments to her in the workplace. It also describes instances where he allegedly groped her bottom and breasts, pressed his erection against her, and secretly read her private emails in a fit of jealous rage.
Allen has admitted to "inappropriate" verbal and written communication with Liz, which he apologized for, but denies any physical contact.
The lawsuit does not currently have a pending court date.
Liz complained to Allen, and eventually to other fire department brass, but for a long time, she says, he'd seemed untouchable, even managing to get a promotion after being caught watching hours of porn at work.
In 2007, Allen was eventually fired for sexually harassing Liz — only to be hired as assistant deputy chief by the Fort McMurray Fire Department in 2009, and later promoted to chief.
A decade later, in 2017, Allen retired from the FMFD. He now tours the country getting paid to deliver motivational speeches on leading with integrity, and instructs in university business courses.
In 2018, triggered by Allen's hero status, Liz filed a lawsuit against him and the City of Calgary, alleging the city failed to provide her with a safe work environment free from abuse and harassment.
"I look at that face, and you see a hero and I see a predator."
City knew of issues but did nothing, suit alleges
"Liz" is a pseudonym CBC News is using for the 38-year-old because she alleges she was sexually assaulted, and she and her lawyer are in the process of applying for a publication ban with the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges the city was aware Allen had a history of sexually inappropriate behaviour, including watching pornography at work, yet failed to take action.
Fashion mogul Peter Nygard accused of rape,
sex trafficking by 10 women in class-action lawsuit
Jackie DunhamCTVNews.ca Staff Writer
Caution - disgusting descriptions follow.
NEW YORK -- Ten women have filed a class-action lawsuit against wealthy Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard accusing him of rape and sex trafficking, with many of them claiming they were under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged assaults.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday, accuses Nygard of luring “young, impressionable, and often impoverished children and women” with cash payments and false promises of modelling opportunities to visit his Bahamian mansion in order to “assault, rape, and sodomize them.”
The lawsuit also names a number of the 77-year-old business magnate’s New York-based corporate entities and employees as defendants in the case for their alleged roles in “financing, facilitating, and covering up the abuse.”
The plaintiffs, who now range in age from 18 to 36, said they’re not revealing their identities because of the “sensitive and highly personal nature of this matter.”
At the time of the alleged rapes, which the lawsuit states occurred between 2008 and 2015, three of the women were 14 years old, three others were 15 years old, and another one was 17 years old.
The lawsuit describes in graphic detail how Nygard and his associates would allegedly entice young women and girls to his mansion in the Bahamas for “pamper parties” under the promise of cash payments and modelling gigs.
“When the victims were not swayed by promises, many were drugged to force compliance with Nygard’s sexual desires,” a press release for the class-action lawsuit states.
In the lawsuit, Nygard and the other defendants are accused of using “alcohol, drugs, force, fraud, and/or other forms of coercion” to have the women and girls commit unwanted sexual acts, including sodomy and defecating or urinating on Nygard.
The complainants said they were offered thousands of dollars after each of the assaults.
In one case, a complainant who said she was 14 at the time of the assault, said Nygard gave her an envelope containing US$5,600 after he raped her at one of his pamper parties in the Bahamas.
Jay Prober, Nygard’s Winnipeg-based lawyer, called the allegations detailed in the class-action lawsuit “completely false.” He said they’re not founded on any evidence and they’re “vigorously” denied by his client.
“He will defend them vigorously and in the end we expect he’ll be vindicated,” he told CTVNews.ca during a telephone interview on Friday.
Prober said they expected the lawsuit because it’s part of a larger, longstanding dispute between Nygard and a neighbour in the Bahamas, Prober said the ongoing battle between the two businessmen started over access to property and alleges that the neighbour is behind the current allegations against Nygard.
“This class-action is part of a larger conspiracy,” he said. “Women are being paid to fabricate and manufacture these kinds of stories, these sexual stories, in an effort to destroy Nygard and his business.”
The two men have filed multiple lawsuits against each other over the past decade. The most recent one was filed in November 2019, in which Nygard accused the other of trying to damage his reputation and business.
According to Thursday’s class-action lawsuit, Nygard has an estimated net worth of US$900 million through “various business entities that he owns in the fashion industry.” His flagship women’s clothing retailer, Nygard International, which is based in Winnipeg, operates more than 170 locations across North America.
The class-action lawsuit calls on the court to prohibit Nygard and the other defendants from engaging in unlawful acts and to award members of the suit damages, the amount of which is to be determined at trial.
In a press release, the two law firms representing the 10 women appealed to other potential victims to come forward and join the suit.
None of the allegations have been tested in court and no criminal charges have been filed.
Country singer found dead in home by Florida deputies
serving warrant for child sex abuse charges
serving warrant for child sex abuse charges
NEW PORT RICHEY, FL (WFLA) – Country music singer Daniel Lee Martin was found dead in a Pasco County home on Friday after a standoff with deputies who were serving a warrant on charges related to the sexual abuse of minors, the sheriff’s office says.
According to a spokesperson for the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office, the warrant was for three counts of sexual exploitation on a minor, three counts of aggravated sexual battery, one count of solicitation of a minor to commit rape of a child and two counts of committing an aggravated sexual battery.
When deputies got there, the sheriff’s office said 54-year-old Martin did not respond to their attempts to contact him. The SWAT team was called to the scene after deputies say Martin made threats of harm against himself and others.
Once deputies got inside the home, they found Martin dead from an apparent suicide.
Online jail records show Martin was arrested on January 27 in Pasco County on charges of lewd and lascivious exhibition of a victim under 16.
The sheriff’s office did not comment on Martin’s connection to the country music industry but TMZ reported his death Friday evening.
Paris Mayoral Candidate and Lunatic Russian Artist
Russian shock artist arrested in France days after leaking sex tapes of Macron party ex-candidate for Paris mayor
Artist Pyotr Pavlensky lies on the ground, wrapped in barbed wire roll, during one of his performances. © Reuters / Artur Bainozarov
Self-exiled Russian shock artist, Pyotr Pavlensky, has been detained in France over a knife attack. The arrest came shortly after sex tapes he released forced a Paris mayor candidate to withdraw from the race.
Pavlensky was arrested by police after he left his hotel in Paris on Saturday, Le Parisien reported. BFM TV said that the artist had been wanted over “banditry with the use of dangerous means” since an incident at a party on January 1.
At the time, the Russian reportedly had a heated argument with a group of people and grabbed a knife to add weight to his stance. He ended up injuring two partygoers, but was himself hit in the head with a bottle.
The artist insisted that he had to face off against around a dozen adversaries and used the knife only to scare them off. He said he then dropped the weapon on the floor without wounding anybody.
He’s already serving a three-year suspended sentence for setting the entrance to the Bank of France on fire to decry “tyranny” and encourage a new revolution in the country back in 2017.
French law enforcement had a month-and-a-half to apprehend Pavlensky, but they decided to move against him at a really curious moment.
The man was making headlines in the country due to his role in the sex scandal involving Paris mayor candidate Benjamin Griveaux from President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party.
Griveaux and Pavlensky
On Valentine’s Day, Griveaux announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy a month before the election in order to shield his family, who had been the subject of “defamatory statements, lies, anonymous attacks, exposure of secret private conversations, as well as death threats,” from further harassment.
The politician said the final straw was the publication of sex tapes by Pavlensky’s website, Pornopolitique. However, he neither denied nor confirmed the authenticity of the materials leaked by the shock artist.
Pavlensky accused Griveaux of being a hypocrite, saying that the father of three ran on a platform of family values while actually leading a completely different lifestyle.
He backed those claims by releasing what he said was the politician’s correspondence with a young woman. It included Griveaux allegedly confessing that he considered marriage a “prison” as well as some of the intimate photos and videos he sent to the female.
To add to Pavlensky’s problems, Griveaux filed a complaint over “invasion of privacy” after the leak and prosecutors have opened an investigation into the matter.
Before his arrest, Pavlensky wrote on Facebook that the Pornopolitique website was blocked by the French authorities after being online for less than three days.
But the artist vowed to keep publishing compromising data on other French politicians, saying that this was what “freedom of speech” looks like.
“I won’t allow any power to destroy what I put so much effort and time into. And I promise to all viewers and readers that the Pornopolitique portal will be restored,” he wrote.
Pavlensky was propelled to international notoriety by a series of politically-charged stunts with the involvement of self-harm in Russia over the last decade. In 2012, he sewed his mouth shut in support of the members of the Pussy Riot punk band, who were charged with hooliganism after an unsanctioned gig at Moscow’s main cathedral. His other notable performance saw him undressing and nailing his scrotum to the pavement of Red Square.
In 2017, the artist was accused of sexually assaulting a woman and asked for political asylum in France, arguing that he was being persecuted by the Russian government over his activism.
France took him in but apparently quickly regretted that decision as Pavlensky’s over-the-top performances continued there and now target the French authorities.
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