BENGALURU: A 38-year-old private firm employee is cursing his luck for losing Rs 10,000 over a 10-minute chat with a woman in an online live sex chat room. The accused, identified as Kajal, lured the victim and undressed during the chat. She had managed to get all the contact details of the victim by enticing him, before disconnecting the call.
After some time, she called him again and demanded money, failing which she threatened to upload the video on Facebook and other social media platforms. The accused was blackmailed for almost 12 hours and was made to send money to the account numbers given by her. When the demand kept increasing, he approached the Bellandur police of the Whitefield division and filed a complaint against her. The act of the accused amounts to sextortion.
The victim resides at a PG accommodation in Bellandur. He started chatting at 11 pm on Wednesday and became the victim of sextortion. The accused then blackmailed him till 11 am the next day. The accused also gave her WhatsApp number to the victim and asked him to come on a WhatsApp video call. Here again, during the conversation, she undressed and was recording without the notice of the other. She also reportedly sent the video recordings to his WhatsApp to scare him further.
The man has reportedly made two UPI transactions to another mobile number given by her. In the first, he paid Rs 2,000, while in the second, he paid Rs 8,000. “When the accused demanded another Rs 80,000, the victim refused to pay and approached us. Both the mobile phone numbers of the accused have been obtained. In such cases, the accused would have obtained the SIM cards illegally and it would be difficult to trace them. One should be careful while chatting with an unknown person. The victim filed the complaint on Thursday,” said an officer.
A case of extortion (IPC Section 384) and also under a Section of the Information Technology Act, 2000, have been registered against the unidentified woman. “The modus operandi of the accused is to target victims who are subscribers of such websites or apps. Nude pictures are posted in the app to lure victims. After taking them into confidence, they extort money,” the officer added.