Mumbai: The police have booked an unidentified woman for allegedly blackmailing a merchant navy officer in a sextortion case on Tuesday.
Sextortion refers to cases wherein individuals are threatened/ coerced into sharing their explicit images online, which offenders threaten to make public if victims don’t pay up.
According to the police, on Monday, the accused offered to chat with the complainant and. The navy officer and the unidentified woman then video called on WhatsApp. The accused recorded the video call.
The police said that the woman called him on Monday night, blackmailing to pay ₹30,000 and threatened to upload the recording of their WhatsApp rendezvous on social media if he doesn’t transfer the amount to her. The officer realised that it was a scam and refused to pay and disconnected the call.
The police said that the complainant received a call from one of his relatives on Tuesday morning, alerting him that the video of his video chat is being circulated on Telegram. “Realising that he became a victim of sextortion, he approached us,” said a police officer from Bandra police station. “We have registered a case under sections of the Information Technology Act and are tracking the woman who video called the victim,” said a police officer.