A 25-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly harassing and extorting money from a woman on Instagram after befriending her and forcing her to strip on video call, the police said on Saturday. The accused, identified as Sanny Chauhan alias Raghav Chauhan, a native of Indore, extorted Rs 1.25 lakh from the victim, and was demanding Rs 70,000 more after threatening to make her video clips viral.
"On January 12, a woman filed a complaint on the cybercrime portal alleging that in July 2022, she came in contact with a man named Raghav on Instagram. Later, they developed friendship and exchanged their WhatsApp numbers," said Shweta Chauhan, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central district).
Raghav used to message her on WhatsApp regularly in a friendly way to win her faith over time. Later, they developed intimacy and stripped naked on video calls. But soon the accused recorded a semi-naked video of the complainant and started demanding money from her.
Send the clip to woman's husband
"The woman got frightened and paid him Rs 1.25 lakh. But the accused again demanded money by threatening that he will post her clips on social media," said the DCP. The accused also sent the semi-nude video of the victim to her husband and threatened to circulate it on social media if Rs 70,000 was not paid to him. " On January 26, with the help of technical surveillance it was known that the accused was present in the Karol Bagh area.
A police team acted swiftly and arrested Chauhan. The mobile phone containing the semi-naked video of the complainant and three SIM cards used in the commission of crime were recovered from the possession of the accused," the officer said.
Raghav has multiple accounts across social media platform
On interrogation, the police found that Raghav created accounts on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp and randomly sent friendship requests to females. "He then exchanged mobile numbers and used to send messages regularly to win their faith.
Later, he used to lure them and record obscene videos of the victims to extort money by threatening to upload the videos on social media," the DCP said.
