IT executive from Powai loses ₹4 lakh to sextortion

On WhatsApp, they got on a video call, and she recorded a video of him and edited it to make it look like he was in an inappropriate state. “Having heard about such cases before, the man was not bogged down by the threats given by the woman. He kept ignoring her demand for money. On August 14, he got a call from a person claiming to be an officer from the cyber crime cell of Delhi Police,” said an official from Powai police

MUMBAI: A 36-year-old IT executive from Powai lost ₹4 lakh to a sextortion fraud when a woman recorded him on a video call and used his face to make a compromising video.

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The complainant, kept ignoring her demands for money, but later got a call from a person claiming to be from the Delhi police cyber cell threatening to put the video online. The complainant on Sunday told the police that he had received a friend request from a woman who identified herself as Anita Kumar on social media and later connected with her on WhatsApp.

On WhatsApp, they got on a video call, and she recorded a video of him and edited it to make it look like he was in an inappropriate state. “Having heard about such cases before, the man was not bogged down by the threats given by the woman. He kept ignoring her demand for money. On August 14, he got a call from a person claiming to be an officer from the cyber crime cell of Delhi Police,” said an official from Powai police.

Later, the complainant got scared when he received a call from the officer, who said they received a complaint from a woman against his inappropriate behaviour.

The ‘officer’ told the complainant that the matter could be closed in exchange for some money, with a warning that refusal to comply would lead to the video being uploaded to YouTube, said the police. Between August 14 and August 17, the complainant transferred a total of ₹4 lakh.“The caller kept asking for money under different pretexts, like getting the complainant’s name off the records completely. He even had to borrow money, but later his family came to know about the entire episode,” said the police official

After this, the wife of the complaint insisted he approach the police about the incident. The police have booked the unknown accused for fraud and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act.