A 43-year-old man who works in the health care services in the private sector fell prey to a sextortion cyber-crime where a gang of cyber-fraudsters, including one who dressed up as a police officer on a video call, extorted Rs 7.53 lakh from him. An FIR was registered by the Nirmal Nagar police station in Khar (east), Mumbai Wednesday.
The number of sextortion cases in Mumbai has seen a significant rise this year compared to last year with the number of such cases increasing from 54 FIRs being registered in the entire last year to 47 FIRs being registered in the first six months this year.
In the latest case, the 43-year-old man told the police that he had received a friend request from a woman named Ankita Sharma on his Facebook profile on July 14.
He accepted the friend request and the two started chatting on Facebook messenger. The woman then made a video call and started stripping. The man cut the call after which she asked for his mobile number. He shared the number and she video-called him on Whatsapp and again stripped herself and asked him to show his face.
He then blocked her on WhatsApp and Facebook. Next day, he received a message on WhatsApp where the fraudster shared his video call recording and demanded Rs 15,000, failing which the same would be uploaded on social media platforms. The man paid the money but the fraudster asked for another Rs 15,000. He then blocked the fraudster.
Next day, the victim got a call from another person posing as a police officer from Delhi cyber police. In a video call with the victim, the man, dressed up as a police officer with a police department’s symbol in the background, told the victim that his obscene video is on YouTube and the cyber department is getting several complaints regarding it.
The fraudster gave the man the number of a person from YouTube to delete the video. When the victim contacted the number, another person posing as an executive from YouTube demanded a few lakh rupees to delete the video, to which he obliged.
Next day, the fraudster posing as police officer called back and said the woman Ankita Sharma has committed suicide and he has been made accused in the case. He demanded Rs 5 lakh to settle the matter. The victim ended up paying Rs 7.53 lakh but the scamsters kept demanding more, after which he decided to approach the police.