Sending Friend Requests As Women, How A Gang Blackmailed Men For Lakhs

One accused has been arrested and three suspects identified as the cyber cell of Delhi Police busted a "sextortion" module operating from Rajasthan.

Police have said they had received nine complaints in the matter. K P S Malhotra, DCP of the cyber cell, said one of the complainants had received a friend request on Facebook and the sender asked for his WhatsApp number. Thereafter, the complainant received a vulgar video with his face morphed into it. The sender threatened to upload it on the Internet unless he paid up. Scared, the complainant paid Rs 1,96,000 to the accused.

Police said the mobile phone numbers were issued in Assam and were being used from Bharatpur district in Rajasthan. Further investigation led police to unearth the extortion module running from Bharatpur.

Police chased the money trail through the bank accounts the complainant had deposited money in. They have arrested 23-year-old Hakmuddin in this connection and three of his associates allegedly involved in the crime are on the run.

Explaining how the Bharatpur-based module trapped people, police said they would send out friend requests from fake profiles of women. Once the requests would be accepted, they would start chatting with the targets and lure them into vulgar acts on video calls. They would record these video chats and threaten to make the video public unless the targets paid up.

Police have appealed to the people to not accept friend requests from unknown profiles and beware of such traps. And in case they were targeted, they should inform the police at once.