A 32-year-old man has lodged a criminal complaint with the Dombivali police after a gang of sextortionists had tried to extort money from him by first inducing him to go nude over a video call and then sent him a sending him his nude photograph and demanding money to not make the said photograph viral.

At least thirteen more persons had approached the Dombivali police with similar complaints in the recent time, the police said.

According to the police, the complainant who is a resident of Dombivali (E), had recently approached the police stating that one of his friends had become a victim of sextortion after which his friend had deleted his Facebook profile, sim card and WhatsApp but he did not pay any money to the fraudsters.

In July this year, the complainant too received a friend request on his Facebook from the same woman who was trying to blackmail his friend."The victim decided to gather evidence against the woman and her associates and accepted her FB request. The woman then asked the victim to share his number and soon made an obscene video call to him. She then asked the victim to take off his clothes. After the victim followed her instructions, the woman then sent his photograph on his phone and demanded money to get the photograph deleted," said a police officer.

He added, "Soon the victim kept receiving phone calls from people who claimed to be from Delhi police and a YouTuber and told the victim to pay the money if he wanted the photograph not to get viral. The victim then approached the police and provided numbers of all those people who were trying to extort money from him.

Thirteen more people have complained to us that they too were being extorted in a similar fashion and of them, six victims have already paid Rs 3 lakh to the fraudsters. It appears different fraudsters are now using this modus-operandi to dupe people.

"A case has been registered in the matter on October 20 under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and section 67A (Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc., in electronic form) of The Information Technology Act.

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