Mumbai. In a case of how random friend requests on social media can land you in a trouble, a 47-year-old Santacruz resident was duped to the tune of ₹12.24 lakh. Posing as officials from YouTube and Delhi police cyber cell, a gang extorted money from him by blackmailing him with a video they had recorded while the complainant was having a conversation over a video call with a woman he recently befriended on Facebook.
The complainant, who works with an internet and cable service operator, had on March 2 sent a Facebook friend request to one user Priyanka Sharma. The woman accepted his friend request and after some time messaged him. She later shared her WhatsApp number with him.
The same night, the complainant made a video call on the number shared by the woman. She accepted the video call and the two talked for a brief period.
“There were three video calls between the complainant and the woman the same night and during the conversation, the woman was naked. She had also managed to convince the complainant to take off his clothes. After a few minutes, the woman called him and said that she had recorded their video call conversation and threatened to upload it on various social media platforms if he didn’t pay her. As per her direction the complainant first transferred ₹20,000 in a given bank account,” said a police officer requesting anonymity.
A few days later the complainant received a call from one Manjeet Singh Rathod, who identified himself as an officer from the Delhi Police cyber cell. Singh told the complainant that his nude video has been posted on YouTube and it violates their policy so a complaint has been filed with the Delhi police. Singh also shared one YouTube executive Shrikant’s number with him and asked him to call and get the matter resolved.
When the complainant called Shrikant, he asked him to pay money to get the video deleted from YouTube. He transferred the money per the directions.
A few days later, Singh again called the complainant and asked him to speak to his senior Mahindra Swami. On contacting Swami, the complainant was told that when the police went to arrest the fraud woman Priyanka Sharma she allegedly committed suicide and his (the complainant’s) name has also cropped up in the probe. states the police complaint.
Swami asked the complainant that they are registering a murder case against him and if doesn’t want that to be happened then pay them off. Feeling that he is badly trapped in a police case, the complainant transferred money to Swami as and when he demanded, the police said.
This continued for a few weeks and the accused person kept on demanding money. He finally approached the Cyber police and on Wednesday filed an FIR.
The police have registered a case against the accused people under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act for extortion, cheating, impersonation, etc.
Cyber police sources said that in sextortion matters fraudsters pose as policemen or falsely take the name of YouTube to put victims in fear so that they could extort money from them.