Social media fake followers scam: Mumbai crime branch questions rapper Badshah for 10 hours

Mumbai: The Mumbai Crime Branch on Friday (August 7, 2020) questioned famous Bollywood rapper Badshah for nearly 10 hours in connection with the social media fake followers scam. 

Badshah alias Aditya Prateik Singh Sisodia came to the Crime Branch office around 12 noon. This was the second consecutive day that he was called for questioning. He has been summoned again on Sunday.

The crime branch has as many as 238 questions which they need to ask the singer. Almost every song of his has got millions of views but the surprising thing is that the comments on those videos are only a few hundred. The crime branch wants to understand the reason for this from Badshah himself.

Badshah's song "Pagal Hai" had garnered 75 million views in a day but Google rejected his claims. The crime branch now wants to explore this claim as well.

Also, Badshah had a suddenly lost a lot of 'followers', the crime branch has asked for the list of all his followers.

The matter came to light after Bollywood singer Bhumi Trivedi found a fake profile of hers on social media. Following which the Mumbai police busted a social media fake followers racket and several Bollywood celebrities, sports personalities and some high profile builders were alleged to be guilty of buying followers.

In the investigation so far, Mumbai Police have found as many as 176 high profile people who have allegedly paid to get followers.

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.

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.