Cybercrime officials of the Criminal investigation Department (CID) unearthed a sex-trap racket and arrested three persons, including two truck drivers from Bharatpur, Rajasthan, for allegedly luring and blackmailing people after recording their private videos.
Based on two complaints, a team of officials tracked down the accused, identified as Sakir Pahari, Kasam Khan and Jamil Khan, from their hometown Bharatpur in Rajasthan.
According to the police, Kasam and Jamil are truck drivers, while Sakir was unemployed and a friend of the accused. They ganged up to operate the racket since the first lockdown. The accused are school dropouts but are being trained by their handler, a police officer said, adding that efforts are on to track him down.
The cyber criminals, pretended to be women, befriended victims on social media, lured them into video calls and recorded their private videos without their knowledge and consent. Later, they start demanding a ransom from the victims by blackmailing them about sharing the private images and videos, the police said.
Two such incidents were reported at Cyber Crime Police Station in February and March this year.
CID officials advised people to not fall prey to such fraud and exercise caution while accepting any friend request from unknown persons. Privacy controls provided by social media sites should be used to avoid any misuse of information and in case of instances where the demand for money is made, people should report it to the jurisdictional cybercrime/ CEN police stations immediately, they said.