CALANGUTE: In yet another incident of tourists getting honey-trapped and fleeced along the busy Bardez coastal belt, the owner and bouncers of ‘Devils Place’, a nightclub in Calangute, were booked by the police for allegedly extorting Rs 79,000 from a trio of tourists from Karnataka. The complainant also reported that the bouncers damaged his mobile phone while threatening them, causing an additional loss of Rs 42,000, leaving the trio scammed to the tune of Rs 1,21,000.
The instances of touts, bouncers and hoteliers in Goa conning tourists have the potential to tarnish the State’s tourism image, globally. This trend poses a risk of damaging the lucrative tourism industry, the proverbial golden goose for the State.
While ‘Rambo’ alias Raymond Howse, a tout and a native of Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, has been arrested, three others are on the run with the Calangute police in pursuit of them.
The club is reportedly owned by the son of a former Minister from the BJP and has been leased out to a Delhi-based individual.
The complaint, filed by Praveen Kumar, detailed a distressing night at the club. According to Kumar, some girls befriended the trio of tourists, indulged in drinks, and after dancing and socialising the night away, they abruptly disappeared. Subsequently, the intoxicated tourists were presented with a staggering bill of Rs 54,000 for the consumed beverages. Faced with no apparent choice, the tourists paid Rs 25,000 in cash, only to be coerced into transferring an additional Rs 54,000 through the UPI payment platform into the bank accounts of the nightclub’s co-owners.
“Having no choice, they paid Rs 25,000 in cash. The bouncers then threw their weight around and allegedly forced the trio to pay another Rs 54,000 through UPI transfer into the bank accounts of the co-owners of the nightclub,” said Calangute PI Paresh Naik, and added that Rs 10,000 from this amount was credited into the account of Virendra Gurudas Shirodkar.
While the complaint was registered on Wednesday, the incident allegedly occurred on Sunday night at around 10pm at the club on Baga road.
Kumar named the accused as Pailwan, a bouncer at the club, Rambo, Virendra Gurudas Shirodkar and the proprietor of Devils Place club. Following the email complaint on Wednesday, Calangute police registered an offence under Sections 392, 427 r/w 34 IPC.
The Calangute PI told O Heraldo that this was the modus operandi employed by many nightclubs in the area- hiring girls to lure tourists, get them drunk and later extort money from them using their bouncers. “These type of loot and plunder happens in some of the South-East Asian countries and such activities will not be tolerated here,” said Naik.
He further informed that action had been initiated against three such notorious nightclubs earlier, and added that he would write to the authorities concerned seeking cancellation of the licence of the Devils Club.
Further investigation in respect of possible whereabouts of absconding accused persons and gathering of evidence against the accused person including the banking transaction is in progress, police said.
