Social media influencer Bobby Kataria arrested by Gurugram Police

Sanjay Yadav

Gurugram, May 27

The Gurugram Police on Monday arrested social media influencer Bobby Kataria on charges of human trafficking and fraud. An FIR was registered at the Bajghera police station.

The matter came to light today when two persons approached the Gurugram police with the complaint that Kataria had defrauded them of over Rs 4 lakh. The victims claimed before the police that when they reached Vientiane, capital of Laos, through an initiative by Kataria, they learnt that about 150 Indians, including women, had been brought to a Chinese company at Golden Triangle in Laos through human trafficking. They had been held hostage and forced to commit cybercrime.

History of controversies

• In August 2022, an FIR was registered against Bobby by Gurugram police for thrashing a woman, posting vulgar messages about her on social media and giving her death threats. Earlier, he was also arrested in Gurugram for misbehaving with the police
• A Dehradun court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Bobby Kataria in 2022 after he had shared a video in which he was seen drinking in public and blocking a road
• In 2022, he was arrested by Delhi Police for smoking inside an airplane

According to the complaint filed by Arun Kumar, a native of Fatehpur, and Manish Tomar, a native of Dholana village in Hapur (Uttar Pradesh), they were looking for jobs when they came across a jobs advertisement on Instagram. It was posted on the ID Bobbykataria-official and YouTube channel MBK KA SATH. They contacted Kataria on his mobile phone and he told them that he provided jobs abroad and asked them to meet him in his office in Conscient-One Mall, Sector 109, Gurugram.

“I had met Bobby Kataria on February 1 in his office and he gave me an assurance of getting a job in UAE after taking Rs 2,000 as registration charge. After having Rs 1.52 lakh transferred in his account, Bobby sent me a ticket to Vientiane (Laos) through his agent Shokeen. On March 28, as per the instructions of Bobby Kataria, I exchanged Rs 50,000 to US dollars at the airport and boarded the flight. Similarly, my friend Manish Tomar was also assured by Bobby of getting a job in Singapore,” Arun said in his complaint.

He added Manish Tomar transferred a total of Rs 2.59 lakh to Kataria and he too boarded the Vientiane flight the same day. When the two landed in Vientiane, they met one Abhi, who introduced himself as a friend of Bobby Kataria and a ‘Pakistani’ agent. “The next day, they took us to an anonymous Chinese company where they thrashed us and forcibly took away our passports and forced us to commit cyber fraud along with some American people,” he said. “They threatened us that if we did not do that work, we would never be able to go back to India. For two days, we worked there but on the third day, we both ran away from there and returned to India through the Indian Embassy.”

“After returning, when we asked him to give our money back, Bobby Kataria refused and then we approached the police,” the complainants said in their complaint.

“We have arrested the main accused Bobby Kataria. We will take him on police remand after being produced in a city court tomorrow,” said Karan Goel, DCP (West). His Chinese and Pakistani connections will also be probed, the police said.