Sextortionists trap Mumbai businessman, force him to fork out Rs 8 lakh – Times of India

MUMBAI: In yet another case of sextortion, cyber frauds have targeted a 67-year-old city businessman, threatening, blackmailing and forcing him to shell out over Rs 7.5 lakh.
The senior citizen, who is a textile merchant from Ghatkopar, has lodged a complaint with Tilak Nagar police alleging that on July 11, he received a ‘Hi’ message on WhatsApp from a woman and he replied to her. Immediately, the woman made a video call on the app and asked him to go to the bathroom and undress. The man did as he was told. According to him, the woman was also nude and asked him to hold his mobile properly. Smelling something fishy on being told how to hold his mobile, he disconnected the call. Scared, he also deleted and blocked the woman’s number.
On July 13, he received a call from one Vikram Rathod, who claimed to be from Delhi police special cell and told the city resident that his nude video with a woman had come to them while probing a sex-related case. Rathod gave him a number and directed him to call on it to stop his video from being uploaded on YouTube. When the complainant called the given number, the person at the other end asked him to pay Rs 25,500 as fee to stop the video from being uploaded. He immediately transferred the amount online.
However, within a few hours he got another call asking him to fork out an additional Rs 32,000, which he duly did.
The next day, Rathod called him and said police were arresting the woman in the sex racket and he should pay up Rs 50,000 if he did not want trouble as he too was in the video clip. Once again, he fulfilled the demand. On July 15, Rathod called up the victim again and informed him that the woman had committed suicide and since he was in the video in her mobile phone, he should pay Rs 2.5 lakh if he wanted the clip erased. Trapped, he shelled out the amount demanded.
Finally on July 18, Rathod called him once again and claimed that while the issue had been settled, he had to pay a compensation to the woman’s family and sought Rs 4 lakh. He gave in yet again, but decided to approach Tilak Nagar police. He told cops that he had lost over Rs 7.5 lakh in all in the honey trap.
Police have registered an offence of cheating, forgery, breach of trust and under sections of Information Technology Act and the cyber cell of the city police is conducting a parallel probe. Cops are also trying to trace the beneficiary bank accounts and the mobile numbers from which the callers contacted, threatened and extorted money from him.
Online sextortion takes place when fraudsters threaten to circulate the target’s private and sensitive material online if he/she does not comply with their demands.