Chembur man loses ₹3.16 lakh in sextortion
Mumbai: A 39-year-old Chembur resident reportedly lost ₹3
Mumbai: A 39-year-old Chembur resident reportedly lost ₹3.16 lakh to a sextortion scam.
The complainant, who works with a private firm in Airoli, had on December 27 last year received a friend request from a woman named Kirti Agarwal on Facebook. The man accepted the request and also shared his WhatsApp number while chatting with her.
On December 31, he received a message on WhatsApp from Kirti who told him that she would make a video call and asked him to go to the bathroom.
The complainant went to the bathroom and received a video call wherein the woman was naked. On her request, the complainant took off his clothes and after a few seconds the call got disconnected.
Later, the complainant received a call from the woman Kirti who demanded ₹15,000 from him by threatening to share the recorded clip of their video call conversation on social media platforms, the FIR stated. The man told her that he would not give any money and disconnected the call.
The next day, he received a call from a person, who identified himself as ACP Gaurav Shinde from Mumbai Cyber Cell. Gaurav Shinde told him that his private video had gone viral on social media and asked him to speak to one of his juniors, Nitin Shinde, to get the video deleted.
The complainant received a call from Nitin Shinde who demanded and accepted money in several transactions from the complainant under the pretext of removing his videos from social media platforms. Gaurav Shinde also extracted money from him under the pretext of cancelling the FIR registered against him, an officer said.
On January 2, Gaurav Shinde again called the complainant and told him that the woman had tried to commit suicide and was hospitalised. He demanded ₹7 lakh for her treatment, the complainant said.
As the complainant ran out of money and could not pay more, the frauds kept on threatening him. The complainant realised that he was being conned and approached the Cyber Police only to discover that there was no ACP Gaurav Shinde attached to the Cyber police.
In fact, the post of ACP in Mumbai Cyber has been lying vacant since the past few months, a cyber police officer said.
The man then filed a complaint with the Tilak Nagar police against the fake cyber cops and the woman. The police have written to network service providers and banks seeking details of the mobile numbers, email IDs and bank accounts used in the crime.
