Mumbai police nab five in interstate 'sextortion' racket

The Mumbai police's crime branch has apprehended five persons, one of them a juvenile, in connection with an interstate 'sextortion' racket involved in blackmailing people and extorting money from them by threatening to make their obscene video chats public, an official said

Mumbai (Maharashtra):The Mumbai police's crime branch has apprehended five persons, one of them a juvenile, in connection with an interstate 'sextortion' racket involved in blackmailing people and extorting money from them by threatening to make their obscene video chats public, an official said on Thursday. The BKC cyber police station has nabbed the five accused after conducting operations in Nagpur, Uttar Pradesh, and Odisha, the official said.

Investigations have revealed that members of the racket had allegedly blackmailed several people in the last couple of months and made money by selling obscene video clips of at least 250 victims to 80 persons in various states, he said. Prima facie, it came to light that the accused used an account of a Nepal-based bank for money transactions, which they used to extort from the victims apart from Indian bank accounts, he said.

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The accused used to create fake accounts posing as girls on social media platforms and lure men, most of whom were rich with high-profile backgrounds, the official said, adding that the accused created 12 fake accounts and six fake email IDs. While posing as girls on social media, the accused took the victims into confidence and insist on starting obscene video chats, which they would then record, he said. They used to blackmail the victims with the recorded videos and extort money from them, he said.

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(PTI)