Techie loses Rs 2.6 lakh to online extortionists

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: A 30-year-old citybased techie who was searching for new friends on a popular dating application, claimed to have lost Rs 2.6 lakh after he fell prey to a gang of online extortionists.

In his complaint to the police, the victim stated that he was excited to make new connections on the app after coming across muchhyped advertisements about it.

The victim got in touch with a woman who introduced herself as Nikita, 25, and soon they started a live conversation with her over video calling.

The woman noted the victim's phone number and his social media addresses. She allegedly made the victim do things that he “did not want to” and recorded the activities, which she later used to blackmail him.

The victim was shocked when the woman started demanding money from him and provided different bank accounts. After parting with Rs 2.6 lakh on different occasions, the victim ran out of finances.

A few days later, another person claiming to be a police officer from Uttar Pradesh, identified himself as Aravind Shukla and started threatening the victim.

Unable to take the harassment any longer, the victim approached the Whitefield Police Station in Bengaluru and filed a complaint against the extortionists.

The Cyber Crime Division of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has launched a probe to track down the miscreants.