An alarming incident of alleged impersonation and extortion has surfaced from Karnataka’s Belagavi district on Sunday, where four people posing as journalists and police personnel were arrested on charges of falsely implicating a man in a fabricated case pertaining to narcotics and demanding up to Rs 3 lakh to spare him from arrest, police said.

According to police, the accused allegedly threatened the victim to send him to the Hindalga Central Jail if he failed to pay the said amount. Police said the victim feared legal action, and initially handed over Rs 60,000 to them.

However, he later approached the authorities and filed a complaint, leading to the arrests of the accused.

Victim trapped in carefully planned conspiracy

As per police, the incident took place at around 5 pm on July 18, 2026. The complainant, named Mehboob Babusab Jamadar, alleged that an unidentified man approached him and compelled him to purchase two packets of cannabis for Rs 1,000.

Moments later, four men arrived in a car and introduced themselves as police officers and journalists to Mehboob. They reportedly took him to a sugarcane field, accused him of selling cannabis and opened the packets before him.

According to the investigating police personnel, the accused filmed the entire episode on the pretext of conducting a purported police raid, aimed at making the operation appear genuine.

Complainant threatened with arrest, Rs 3L demanded from him

All the four accused allegedly forced Mehboob into their vehicle and drove him near the Hukkeri Police Station in Belagavi’s Hukkeri town. There, they threatened him to register a criminal case against him and get him incarcerated at the Hindalga Central Jail, unless he paid them a substantial amount of money.

Police said the group initially demanded between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh. Terrified and worked up due to the threats, he paid Rs 60,000 in cash to the accused.

When he was unable to arrange for the remaining amount, the accused allegedly uploaded a video of the staged raid on a social media platform operated under the name ‘GD TV,’ in an attempt to coerce him into paying the balance.

Special police team cracks the case

After Mehboob lodged a complaint, police booked the accused under relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and constituted a special investigation team.

The team traced and arrested all four accused in Belagavi on Friday. They have been identified as Kallappa Basavanni Malaj, Mallikarjun Siddappa Julfi, Prithviraj Narayan Chauhan and David Jacob Tangeral.

According to police, the quartet were YouTubers, who allegedly impersonated journalists and cops to extort money from unsuspecting people. Police also seized the vehicles used in the crime, including a car and a bike, two cell phones and Rs 34,000 in cash suspected to be part of the extorted amount.

The accused were produced before a court in Hukkeri, which remanded them to judicial custody. The police said they are probing the matter at length.