CHENNAI: A 25-year-old man who allegedly honey trapped girls through social media platforms and later threatened them with their naked pictures was arrested by the Adyar Cyber Crime police on Thursday.
The accused, identified as Arun Christopher, 25, from Tondiarpet is a BE Aeronautical Engineering graduate, and comes from a well-to-do family with parents working as government staff, said the police. Arun works as a temporary staff in the Electricity Department.
Recently a girl from the Chennai city had approached the Adyar Cyber Cell and lodged a complaint.
In her complaint the girl said that she had fallen in love with a man she made acquaintence with through social media.
"Arun had slowly developed an intimate relationship with the girl and later had asked for her naked pictures. The girl used to send them," said Sub Inspector of Police, Maharajan, from the Adyar Cyber Cell, quoting the complaint of the victim.
He added that the man would also video call the girl and record her without her knowledge. During the call, he would ask her to strip.
Pampered too much, Arun had led a carefree life, said the police.
Maharajan said, "Once he had befriended a girl, Arun had his way of speaking to girls to gain their trust. Once he made a girl believe that he's in love with her, he would ask for their naked pictures and also record the video calls."
Later he would ask for the login ID and password of the victim's social media platforms. "He would select a few other girls from the victim's account and text them posing as the victim and ask for their mobile numbers.
After getting their mobile numbers Arun would contact them and speak to them the same way he had spoken to other victims," said V Vikraman, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Adyar.
Some girls who raised suspicion contacted the victim's father which is when he came to know that her daughter was honey trapped.
Since Arun had not demanded any money from the victims, the police suspect he does it for receiving sexual favours. "If the girl does not oblige to his demand he would threaten the girls to upload the pictures online," said Vikraman.
Mobiles phones wiped clean
An interesting turn of events occured when Arun was arrested and the latter quickly formatted his gadget. "He claimed that he had nothing to do with the stalking case since there's nothing on his mobile phone.
His mobile phone was wiped clean and there was no evidence. It later struck me that people like him would have stored the pictures and images not on his mobile phone but on cloud," said V Vikraman.
While checking, the police found that his mobile had an application named 'Easy Vault'. This app enables Arun to hide the images in a storage space he had purchased.
"After opening the app, we found hundreds of pictures and videos of several girls," said the police.
Arun was booked under IT Act and Women Harassment Act.
Request from Police
In his request to youngsters, Deputy Commissioner, V Vikraman said, "At any cost do not trust any person you visit only online. Several fraudsters claim to meet you in person and speak honey laden words.
Moreover, sharing personal pictures of oneself to strangers is a dangerous deal. We request youngsters not to let their feelings take over their conscience as it could land them in trouble."
Police seized a laptop and two mobiles from him and remanded him in judicial custody.