Social media fake followers racket: Mumbai Police summons rapper Badshah

Mumbai: The Crime Branch of the Mumbai Police on Thursday (August 6, 2020) has summoned famous Bollywood singer and rapper Badshah in the fake social media followers case.

He has been summoned to the crime branch office at 1 pm today. In this case, Badshah is the first Bollywood celebrity to be summoned by the Crime Branch. 

Reports suggest that the crime branch may issue summons to Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra too in the case.

On July 29, the Mumbai police had issued summons to Radio Jockey Roshan Abbas and former IPL commentator cum actor Gaurav Kapoor in connection with the fake social media followers scam. They are investors in Chtrbox Digital Company, which is owned by Pranay Swaroop.

Swaroop had claimed in a statement that he has about 30,000 clients and he has been asked to hand over the list of these clients to the Crime Branch with full profile. He has refused to share the details saying he did not have the documents that were requested by the Police.

Chtrbox is one of the leading social media influencers marketing company. Last year it was accused of leaking private date of as many as 49 million Instagram users.

The Mumbai police had busted the social media fake followers racket and several Bollywood celebrities, sports personalities and some high profile builders were alleged to be guilty of buying followers.

The matter came to light after Bollywood singer Bhumi Trivedi found a fake profile of hers on social media.

In the investigation so far, Mumbai Police have found a few Bollywood celebrities, sports personalities and as many as 176 high profile people who have allegedly paid to get followers.