Fraudsters pose as YouTube officials, extort ₹4.68 lakh from MBA student
The accused extracted money from the Bhandup resident by threatening to refer him to the cyber police, as he had spoken to a semi-nude woman from a dating site and also took money
Mumbai A 23-year-old Masters in Business Administration (MBA) student is the latest victim of an extortion racket, where he was duped of ₹4.68 lakh after scamsters posed as officers of a video sharing platform, YouTube.
The accused extracted money from the Bhandup resident by threatening to refer him to the cyber police, as he had spoken to a semi-nude woman from a dating site and also took money under the guise of settlement charges, security deposit etc. for ensuring that the video is not uploaded on the social media platform.
Police officials said the MBA student was befriended by a woman through a dating app. The woman had shared her WhatsApp number with the victim and later she had made a video call to him. The woman was semi-nude in the call and was making vulgar gestures. After the call, the victim student started getting calls from people posing as officers from YouTube.
“He got a call from one Sanjay Singh who told him that one video of him was being uploaded on the platform, which could spoil his image. So, if he wanted the video not to be uploaded on the platform, he should pay him ₹5,550 out of which ₹5,000 was a refundable deposit and the ₹550 was the original charge,” said a police officer from Bhandup police station.
“Thereafter, the accused continued to extract money from the student in the name of security deposit and other charges and took a total amount of ₹4.68 lakh from him. At one point, Singh told the victim that his case will be referred to the cyber police and if he wanted to avoid it, he should transfer money to the Information Technology (IT) engineer’s account immediately,” said the police officer.
Every time the victim was told that the money was refundable they even sent him a receipt, indicating that the refund process had been started and if he can pay the clearing charges, they can immediately get it cleared from the company’s office based in the USA.
Even after paying the money, the 23-year-old continued to get calls and on July 8, he got a call from one person who identified himself as Ram Pandey from the legal team of the social media platform. Pandey told him that he was willing to close his case and that he should give him the PDF containing all the details till now.
Thereafter, when the student spoke to Singh, he was told that the PDF cost ₹1,70,000. When the victim took Pandey on a conference call between him and Singh, Pandey told Singh to handle the issue between victim and Singh, and if he didn’t get the PDF by the next day, tomorrow he could report the matter to the police, said a police officer.
Finally, the student narrated the incident to his father, as his negotiations with Singh did not yield any result.
“We have registered a case in the matter and started investigations to trace the accused. We suspect they are all fraudsters who posed as YouTube officials,” said a police officer from Bhandup police station.