AMRESH PARAB | NT
Panaji
Getting into sleazy video chats through a mobile messaging app with an unknown woman can lead you into a blackmail trap.
Online fraudsters are making the most of social media apps and other popular messaging apps to extort money from gullible people, the cyber crime police warned.
Explaining the modus operandi, cyber crime police said that at first the woman, an accomplice of fraudsters, befriends a man on a social media platform. The mobile number is shared and eventually both engage in sleazy video chats, or either of them goes nude.
The video chats are recorded and used to blackmail the person.
Owing to the social stigma, men do not file a police complaint, but approach the Ribandar-based cyber crime police seeking advice and help as to how to get out of the trap.
In a month, at least three to four people approach the cyber crime police for help.
Police inspector Prashal Dessai advised the people to be cautious while accepting a friend request from an unknown person and talking to that person via video calls, adding that if person approaches the cyber crime police on the menace then help or advice is given.
Most men accept a request from a girl or a woman. Acceptance of the friend request is followed by online chatting.
Subsequently the woman asks the man to share his mobile phone number so that she can talk to him via video call through the mobile messaging app. The video calls get intimate: the woman takes off her clothes and also ask the man to do the same. The video chats are recorded using screen recorder application.
Thereafter blackmailing begins. The objectionable video that was recorded is sent to the man. The scamsters tell the man that he has to pay certain initial amount, threatening that the video will be sent to his friends on the social media platform if the money is not paid.
It must be noted here that the man’s friends list is copied from his social media account by the fraudsters.
Police said that most of those who approached them over the honey trapping had not deposited the ransom money. However, there were some men who had deposited a few thousands of rupees.
The entrapped men did not want to file a police complaint, but desired to be advised as to how to get out of the blackmailing trap.
The police suggestions to the entrapped men include deletion of the Facebook account, deletion of the WhatsApp number or blocking of the particular number.
The entrapped man can also switch off the mobile phone for some days if the scamsters call on that mobile number.
Police stressed that the communication between the fraudsters and the entrapped person should be discontinued because the fraudsters will try to pressurise the man to transfer the money; they may threaten to send the video to friends of the entrapped man.
The fraudsters are only interested in extorting money. If the communication stops then they won’t be able to threaten the man or pressurise him, police maintained.
The post Women entrap men with sleazy video chats appeared first on The Navhind Times.
Comments
Post a Comment