Mumbai: The police has registered a first information report based on a complaint lodged by a 26-year-old director of a realty and infrastructure firm alleging that he was being blackmailed by extortion racketeers using his morphed photographs and video with a woman he befriended on social media.
He said the woman had video called him in a semi-nude state and tried to extort money. As he did not pay, his morphed video was circulated among his friends and relatives. Besides, his fake social media account was created to post obscene videos online.
The complainant, a resident of Juhu, has several diversified businesses like real estate, steel and cement production, and construction material. His firms have undertaken several real estate projects in Mumbai, Pune, Gujarat and overseas.
According to the complaint, a woman befriended him on a photo and video sharing social networking platform recently. On Sunday, she messaged him and requested to make a call.
“She then made a video call to him. He was shocked to see the woman semi-nude. The woman also requested him to remove his clothes after which the complainant disconnected the call,” said a police officer from the Juhu police station.
After he disconnected the call, the complainant got an edited version of his video call with the woman. Later the woman messaged him demanding ₹70,000 and threatened to make the morphed video viral across all his contacts if he failed to pay her. He, however, did not budge on the demand. He was also threatened on a social media platform by another user, the officer added.
“The same day his uncle informed him that he had received a friend request and the story updated by the user had his obscene video. His friends also informed him that some fake accounts were opened on social media platforms in his name and an obscene video was posted there,” said the police officer from the Juhu police station.
Based on his complaint, the Juhu police station registered a case under sections 292 (sale, etc., of obscene books, etc), 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion), 500 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 67-A (punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 against unknown persons.
“We have registered a case and written to the social media platform to find out the details of the user and from where the account was opened and operated,” said senior police inspector of Juhu police station, Ajitkumar Vartak.