HYDERABAD: Six-hundred women from 16 states allegedly send their nude photos and videos in return for a front-office job in a five-star hotel to a software engineer in

and ended up being blackmailed for money by him.

The techie, Clement Raj Chezhiyan alias Pradeep, was arrested by

from his Chennai home and brought to Hyderabad after a local

.

The victims hail from AP, Karnataka, Maharashtra, TN and Delhi among several other states. Investigations have so far revealed that Pradeep, who is an employee of a well-known IT firm, used to run a fake HR office from his home and has confessed to duping 600 women.

The 33-year-old software engineer who was arrested from Chennai for blackmailing 600 women across 16 states began collecting mobile numbers of women because he was frustrated.

“The accused was usually on the night shift, and he claimed that since he used to feel lonely and get frustrated throughout the day with his wife working, he began collecting mobile phone numbers of women through a popular e-classified portal just for fun. But soon, it gave way to blackmailing,” said a senior cop, probing the case.

Clement Raj Chezhiyan alias Pradeep first contacted several women pretending to be an HR manager of a prominent five-star hotel, looking for attractive women for front office jobs.

Explaining his modus operandi, police said, Pradeep, after initially speaking to the victims over phone, would clear them for a second-round interview purportedly with a woman colleague, identified as Archana Jagdish.

“Later, the accused himself would contact the victim through a different phone number on WhatsApp and ask them to share their nude pictures from several angles, saying the company was very particular about the candidate’s figure as it was a front office job,” Miyapur police said. Pradeep’s next step was to make a video call and ask the women to strip down and show their whole body, which he would allegedly record using a software.

“According to Pradeep’s confession, he has so far collected photos and videos of 600 women from 16 states. We are sending the seized gadgets to forensic labs for analysis,” assistant commissioner of police (Miyapur division) S Ravi Kumar told TOI.

The photos were saved in a separate gallery with a password used to access them.

“He has earned lakhs and we are planning to dig out everything once we get more time to question him,” Kumar added.