Eleven persons, including a senior official of a local news web portal, and a home guard jawan attached with Telangana's CID, have been arrested for allegedly indulging in extortion from brothel house organisers and customers, police said today.

Besides the channel's senior official, a crime reporter, and a cameraman were arrested on Wednesday, along with the home guard jawan and others, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West Zone), A Venkateshwera Rao said.

The cameraman, the reporter, and the jawan hatched the plan to extort money from the brothel house organisers and customers, and disclosed it to the channel's official, who approved of it as the portal is running under loss, the DCP said.

He also instructed them to get some money for him, he said.

The trio took the help of three women sex workers by threatening to upload their details on social media, the officer said, adding the jawan impersonated a CID officer.

They conducted fake sting operation on the houses of some customers and extorted Rs 84,000, gold chain and forcibly seized Bangladeshi Passport from a sex worker, the officer said.

They gave Rs 20,000 to the channel's official who encouraged them to continue to extort more money, the officer added.