A 22-year-old youngster from Chennai was arrested by Rachakonda Cyber Crime police on Friday for allegedly blackmailing women faculty of an educational institution by posting their morphed obscene photographs along with their contact details.
The accused, T Tamil Selvan, a private employee from Revathipuram in Urapakkam near Chennai, shared the morphed photos with contact numbers on the Telegram messaging application by using virtual numbers, VPN and tried to extort in Cryptocurrency. Police seized a mobile phone and a hard disk from his possession.
On June 6, a faculty member of Anurag Educational Institution noticed some unknown person on Telegram started sending vulgar messages and her morphed pictures.
Later she got multiple phone calls from unknown persons who were using vulgar language and blackmailing. The faculty member came to know that someone also posted her colleague's photos with all their details in the Pinterest app.
“The accused, who is Technically Advanced, and currently pursuing his MSc in Psychiatry, browsed the internet and went through the websites where the details such as phone number and mail Ids of the people were posted online and downloaded them, later the accused used the apps to create fake morphed sexually explicit photos and videos of the prospective victims,” police said.
Once the accused created those morphed images, he created virtual numbers and registered using them in Telegram to create fake profiles. He hid his identity by using a VPN app.
“ Later he used to send those morphed sexually explicit photos to the victims on Telegram and demanded money via Crypto Currency, if the victims declined his demands, the accused used to post the phone numbers of them(victims) on various Telegram groups and thus mentally harassed them,” the investigators said.
