A 24-year-old man was arrested from Rajasthan for allegedly extorting money from a person after posing as a police officer and using Delhi Police Commissioner Rakesh Asthana's photo as profile picture on social media, officials said on Saturday. The accused is Hakmuddin, a resident of Bharatpur district in Rajasthan, they said. Police had received a complaint alleging that the complainant got a woman’s friend request on Facebook and she later asked for his WhatsApp number, they said.
After sometime, he got a video call on WhatsApp with pornographic content and later, he received a morphed and objectionable video of himself, police said. Then the accused called him up pretending to be a police officer, using Asthana's picture that was downloaded from the Internet. The accused told him to pay money to prevent the video from being uploaded online and the complainant complied and paid Rs 1,96,000, police said.
During investigation, it was found that the mobile numbers used for calling the complainant were issued from Assam and were being used in Bharatpur. The bank accounts, in which the extorted money was deposited, were identified, they said.
After identification of the money trail, technical analysis of social media accounts and locations of the phone numbers, Hakmuddin was identified and arrested on Friday, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Cyber) KPS Malhotra said. Three of his associates from his village have been identified and they are presently absconding, police said. Hakmuddin was also found to be involved in another similar case, they said.
Gangs operating from Bharatpur had a modus operandi that they would send friend requests using a woman’s profile to random people, police said. Once the person accepted the request, they would start chatting with the person on WhatsApp. After some time, they would lure the person to engage in phone sex or sexual acts on video call. The gang members then recorded those acts and used the videos to extort money from their victims, they added.
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