A well-known jeweller in Bandra (W) has lodged a complaint against an unknown cyber-criminal for allegedly creating his fake Instagram account, and sending his morphed obscene photographs to some of his friends. The fraudster reportedly told the victim to pay extortion and threatened to send the obscene video to all his social media contacts if he refused to pay.
According to the Bandra Police, the 40-year-old complainant had opened his Instagram account in 2012. On April 02, when the victim was at his store, he received a phone call from one of his school friends who informed him that she had received an obscene photograph of the victim on her Instagram account.
"She then forwarded the said photograph to the victim. The victim realised that the said photograph was actually a screenshot of a video. The victim also realised that his photograph was morphed and used in the said obscene video. Another person who was known to the victim informed him about having received the said photograph. Further the victim learnt that a fake profile of the victim was created to send the photograph to people known to him," said a police officer.
He added, the victim soon realised that on April 01, he had received a friend request from an unknown woman on Instagram which he had accepted the next day. The said woman then requested the victim to share his mobile number and after the victim shared his number to her he received a message from an unknown number threatening him that if he did not pay up Rs 2.50 lakh, then the obscene video would be sent to his social media contacts. The victim did not pay any money to the extortionist and reported the matter to the police.
The police have registered a case against unknown person under sections 385 (Putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion), 500 (Punishment for defamation), 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous person) of the Indian Penal Code and section 67 (Punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) and 67A (Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act.
