Man posing as Kannada channel CEO held for extortion bid on spa owner; anchor absconding

The incident came to light when Shivakumar, owner of Indiranagar’s Tree Spa and Beauty Parlour, lodged a police complaint on July 1.

According to a police officer, after Venkatesh and Vasanth made a woman join the spa on June 21, Sandesh visited it by posing as a customer looking for a massage. With a hidden camera, he allegedly recorded a private video of the woman to make it look like the spa was running a prostitution racket.

Venkatesh allegedly sent the clip and Vasanth to Shivakumar with a threat to telecast it on the news channel if he was not paid Rs 15 lakh. As Shivakumar said he had only Rs 1 lakh, Venkatesh reduced the amount to Rs 8 lakh. The spa owner, however, approached the JB Nagar police.

Television anchor Divya Vasanth

The police have seized three mobile phones from the arrested accused. They found out that the accused had created a WhatsApp group named Spy Research Team to discuss extortion activities. “Besides the spa, we have also discovered that the gang has extorted money from others and we are investigating,” the police officer said.

Shivashri Media Private Limited, which runs Raj News, has issued a press statement distancing the channel from Venkatesh. “Venkatesh has been working in our organisation’s marketing team as an outsourced employee. He is not the CEO of the company. We will initiate legal action against him for claiming to be the CEO,” S Shivarudrappa, MD of the company, said in the statement.

Vasanth quit another television channel six months ago.