The Delhi Police on Friday arrested a 33-year-old commerce graduate from Gurugram for allegedly misusing identities and photographs of women on social media sites like Instagram and Facebook.
The accused allegedly used e-wallets to receive the extorted money and later transferred it to his bank accounts. One of his fake IDs on Instagram has over one million followers, the police said.
Impersonate them
The accused, identified as Akash Chaudhary who belongs to Patna, used weak security settings on women’s accounts to download their images and videos and later created pages impersonating them. The accused then used these pictures to lure men into obscene chats and later blackmailed them.
Investigation revealed that he would blackmail the men by threatening to post the chats online.
“Fearing damage to their reputation, most of the victims would pay him,” said Chinmoy Biswal, Deputy Commissioner of Police, (South-East) district.
In one such instance, Chaudhary impersonated a woman and indulged in a chat with a businessman from Mumbai. He later blackmailed him and managed to extorted over ₹70,000 from him.
Chaudhary had previously worked with a call centre which helped him gain knowledge about online marketing.
He even charged a cab provider and footwear company for endorsements as he had one million followers. The firms never knew that they were paying an impersonator.
Unethical chats
“Acting on a complaint received at Lajpat Nagar police station, in which a woman alleged that an unknown person was posting her image on escort service sites, indulged in obscene chats and impersonated her, the fake social media IDs were tracked and the accused was identified and arrested,” said Mr. Biswal.
