You can be a victim of ‘sextortion’ by one mistake, keep these things in mind to avoid it

The Delhi Police had busted a sextortion racket two months ago, arresting several accused from Rajasthan. The racket was unearthed through a complainant who alleged that he had received a WhatsApp video call from an unknown number, which was obscene. After this the complainant talked to the girl for some time and stopped the call. Thereafter the same complainant was blackmailed in different ways and Rs 18 lakh was looted from him. People often get trapped in such incidents, in which sextortion is a big and very sensitive issue. This is such a problem, due to which many ordinary people have even committed suicide.

The business of sextortion is spreading rapidly in the country, in which crores of rupees are looted from the people who fall in its trap. Some are trapped in the web of obscenity, while some are pressured to extort money by posing as the police and saying that their name appears in a baseless crime.

If you also use social media and use instant messaging service like WhatsApp, then you sextortion Such a serious issue should be known about. Some tips can save you from this kind of blackmailing. Sextortion is made up of two words – sex and extortion, which means blackmail and extortion in the name of obscenity.

As in the case of the complainant mentioned above, the extortion gang uses various methods to extort money, such as making video calls from unknown numbers and showing obscene content, and then blackmailing the victim by editing the clip of that video call wrongly.

Social media platforms are often flooded with friend requests from strangers, and if you’re unlucky, you might come across a scammer or sextortionist. In the beginning, they try to mingle with you and after becoming friends, they may ask you to come on a video call and make your objectionable videos and start blackmailing you.

In some cases, criminals trap the victim in the trap of friendship and ask for personal photos or videos, while there are some cases in which the person behind this whole scam is a hacker, who steals private photos and videos from your phone. Is.

Whatever be the case, in the end these criminals demand money from the victims time and again. In many cases, fraudsters make calls posing as police officers themselves. The same happened with the complainant mentioned in the beginning, where on 1st August 2022, the complainant again received a call from a person who introduced himself as Arun Rawat, SHO, Pune. The person told that a girl has committed suicide and your mobile number has been found in her call log. He told that the complainant is accused of abetment to suicide and the caller, Arun Rawat asked the complainant to reach Pune.

Further, the accused gave a mobile number to the victim and asked the complainant to contact SI Vikram Rathore. On this the complainant contacted on the given number, who pressurized him to fulfill his demands. On this, the complainant sent Rs 18 lakh to different bank accounts of the accused. Apart from this, the victim received another call from another mobile number, who introduced himself as a CBI officer and asked her to go to Mumbai. The complainant again approached Vikram Rathore and he again demanded Rs 3 lakh. Later the complainant found himself cheated and approached Cyber ​​PS Dwarka.

What should you do in such a situation?

If a similar incident happens to you too, the first thing you have to do is keep yourself calm and avoid making any hasty decisions. Many people get flustered in this type of situation and end up falling in the trap of scammers. Here you should immediately go to your nearest police station and tell in detail whatever has happened to you.

We would advise you not to answer video calls from any unknown number. Keep your profiles on social media platforms secure and locked. Always keep your account secure with double authentication. Do not add unknown people to your friend list and if you have to add someone, check their profile properly. Do not upload your private photos and videos to public profiles or social media accounts and also avoid keeping such private media files in the phone’s open gallery.