Siblings ‘honey trap’ man using voice changer app, extract Rs 46 lakh

KOCHI: In yet another incident of honey trap, a person in the city had to pay Rs 46.48 lakh to a gang that blackmailed him threatening to publish his nude pics which they managed to source from him after chatting with him on social media disguising as a woman. Police said the gang members were arrested after a detailed probe was conducted based on the complaint lodged by a 48-year-old victim hailing from Maradu and working in a private firm in the city as manager.

The arrested are siblings and identified as Harikrishnan, 28, and his brother Girikrishnan, 25, of Gokulam, Kottapaddy, Kottarakkara. Police said the accused, who are facing several cases for Visa fraud, trapped the victim after befriending him through social media. “After realising that the victim was active on Facebook, the accused created fake social media IDs in the name of women and started chatting with him. Later, they started sending pics and lewd messages to him. The victim believed in the conversations and fell for it,” a police officer said. 

“As the relationship grew between them, the victim also started sending his nude pics and videos. The accused used voice changer apps to call the victim in a female voice to convince him,” police said. “Once they received the nude pics and videos, they called him and threatened to send them to his wife and family members. As per the probe, the accused collected a total of Rs 46.48 lakh from the victim in multiple transactions to different bank accounts during the period between May 2021 and March 2022. To convince the victim, the accused gave two residential addresses in Kaloor claiming to be that of the women with whom he was chatting, police said. 

In fact, the accused went to the addresses given by the accused only to find that they belonged to someone else and he was being duped. The duo were nabbed by a special team led by Maradu Station House Officer Joseph Sajan after keeping track of the activities of the duo for the last couple of days.