Oz Kannada film distributor arrested for blackmailing NRI woman

A distributor of Kannada films in Australia has been arrested for extorting Rs 6 lakh from an NRI woman by blackmailing her with private videos, police said.

Rupesh N, who has distributed films such as ‘RangiTaranga’ and ‘Avane Srimannarayana’ down under, was arrested on Friday after the 39-year-old woman filed a complaint at the Nandini Layout police station on Thursday. Rupesh is a resident of JP Park, Mathikere, and divides his time between Bengaluru and Melbourne.

N Shashikumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North), said the woman lived with her husband and children in Melbourne. She had met Rupesh at an event in the Australian city and become friends with him since both of them hailed from Karnataka.

Rupesh had once called her, saying he’s got tickets for an event in Melbourne and asked her to meet him at a restaurant there. When she went to collect the tickets, Rupesh allegedly gave her a drink laced with sedatives and forced her to smoke a hookah. When she became intoxicated, he allegedly took her private videos and photographs. He later demanded sexual favours by threatening to leak the photos and videos on social media or showing them to her family.

The woman told the police that Rupesh extorted Rs 6 lakh from her and often visited her in Melbourne when her husband was not around. In order to keep him at bay, she returned to Bengaluru on February 1 and started living with her in-laws in Nandini Layout.

Rupesh, however, followed her to Bengaluru on February 22. He came to her in-laws’ house the next day and demanded money and sexual favours, Shashikumar said, quoting the woman’s complaint.

Police believe the woman’s complaint is just the tip of the iceberg. Soon after Rupesh’s arrest, his wife contacted the police and reported that he had harassed several women in a similar fashion. She told the police that she had asked him to stay away from such things but that he didn’t pay heed as he had made a lot of money that way.

Police are now trying to contact his other victims.