A 25-year-old man from Walkeshwar becomes the latest victim of ‘sextortion’ when an unknown person demanded ransom for not circulating a video clip in which a person looking similar to him was captured performing sexual acts. Following the complaint, the Malabar Hill police registered a case of extortion and forgery against an unknown accused.
The incident took place on October 24 when the victim was shocked after receiving a video clip from an unknown number on his WhatsApp. In the said video, a person looking similar to the victim himself was recorded performing obscene acts, a naked woman was also there in the video, and the cover page of his Facebook was also in the video.
The victim immediately deleted the video but his trouble didn’t end there, soon he received a call from the same number demanding Rs 5000 or he would circulate the video on social media. The victim narrated the incident to his brother who called the person asking him to delete the video. However, he denied and instead sent the video to one of the victim’s friends and demanded money.
When he realised that the blackmailer would not delete the video, he approached Malabar Hill police station on Thursday and registered his complaint.
“We have registered an offence under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) section of extortion (384), forgery (465) intentional insult (504), criminal intimidation (506) and the section of Information Technology Act was registered against an unknown accused,” said a police officer.
This is not the first instance of ‘sextorion’ in the city. In May, a 21–year-old graphic designer from Goregoan fell prey to the ‘sextortion’ and ended up paying Rs 20,000 to the fraudster. The fraudster made the victim perform sexual acts in front of the camera during a video call and recorded the incident and started demanding extortion.
Cybercrime investigator Pushkar Zantye said that this is not just a case of sextortion but deepfakes as well in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used to clone a person and his movements.