On Thursday, Bollywood rapper Badshah was reportedly summoned by the Mumbai police crime branch in connection to the fake followers’ scam. As per reports, the rapper reported to the crime branch office on Friday at 12 pm where he was quizzed on 238 important questions.
Badshah is the first Bollywood celebrity who has been summoned by law enforcement in connection to the scam. Reportedly, there has been a drastic rise in the number of Badshah’s un-followers. As such, the Crime Branch has asked him to furnish a list of all his followers. Although Badshah is popular for his rap music, his videos on Youtube witness millions of views but only and a handful of comments. This has led the Mumbai police to interrogate him on this regard.
Mumbai: Rapper Badshah arrives at Crime Branch for questioning in fake followers racket case. https://t.co/UFZDDgTv1n pic.twitter.com/lYMka18DBf
— ANI (@ANI) August 7, 2020
Google dismisses claims of Badshah
The rapper had reportedly claimed that his song ‘Paagal’ has garnered 75 million views in a day, a claim that has now been rejected by Google. The Crime Branch will now investigate his claims as well as the reasons behind the disparity between views and comments. Besides, there are 175 other high-profile stars who have allegedly paid to gain fake followers on social media. The racket came to light after Bhumi Trivedi discovered a fake profile of hers online.
Fake followers scam
The Mumbai Police had last month unearthed the fake-followers scam after discovering that a number of celebrities had ‘bought’ fake followers. A racket was burst in which they unearthed more than 50 companies that were involved in selling social media followers, likes and comments.
On 14th July, Central Intelligence Unit (CIU) of the crime branch had arrested one Abhishek Davade who provide such services. The 21-year-old service provider was using bots or fake profiles to increase engagement of his clients. To provide such services, Davade was using more than 170 accounts in which he allegedly added more than five lakh followers to make them look genuine.
