Student From Mumbai Lost 4.7Lakhs in Sextortion
A 23-year-old MBA student from Bhandup, Mumbai has recently become a victim of sextortion and lost Rs 4.68 lakh to fraudsters who claimed themselves as YouTube officials.
A 23-year-old MBA student from Bhandup, Mumbai has recently become a victim of sextortion and lost Rs 4.68 lakh to fraudsters who claimed themselves as YouTube officials. Sextortion is a crime in which someone demands money from someone threatening them to reveal their sexual activities.
The Bhandup police have registered an offense, but no arrest has been made yet. The incident started on 30h June this year when the second-year college student shared his mobile number with a woman on a dating app. Around 8 pm, he received a video call from the woman’s number on WhatsApp wherein a semi-naked woman was seen making vulgar gestures. It took the victim 4-5 minutes to realize that something was not right soon after which he disconnected the call. Later that night, he got a message on WhatsApp with the recording of the video call, stating that he should pay the woman money, If he fails to do so the video would be uploaded on social media sites. The scared student then blocked the number.
However, the next day he got a voice message on WhatsApp where the sender introduced himself as Sanjay Singh and claimed he worked with YouTube. He said the video was being posted on their platform and he needed to pay a settlement of Rs 5,550 including Rs 550 as a charge to delete the video while the remaining amount was refundable. Seeing that the student paid the amount, the accused continued to demand money under different names and got him to pay Rs 4,68,201. Meanwhile, the student got a call from Ram Pandey, who claimed to be a part of YouTube’s legal team and demanded that the victim send him all the details of the case as a PDF and that a charge of Rs 1.7 lakh was required for the same. Pandey also said that if the victim failed to pay the amount by Friday 8th July, they would lodge a police complaint against him.
As the student could not arrange the money, he narrated the story to his father who realized his son was being cheated on and they approached the police. “We are tracing the accused. We have also asked banks to freeze the accounts used in the crime,” said Nitin Unhavane, senior inspector, Bhandup.
