Sextortion! A New Trick That Kolkata Police caution public about, never ‘undress’

Kolkata, Sep 5 : Cautioning people about the menace of sextortion, the Kolkata Police has appealed them not to accept WhatsApp video calls or any other video call from any unknown number.

“Beware of sextortion”, the police said Sunday on its Facebook page, explaining the modus operandi of the culprits.

“If you are a man, the fraudster impersonates a woman and contacts you over Facebook, Instagram or any other social media platform and constantly chats with you for a few days.

“Then one day you may be asked to chat over video call, or you may receive a video call from their number.

“The fraudster will then play a video of a girl undressing in front of the camera. This video call is recorded by the fraudster by using a screen recorder app. In this recording, the face of the victim, and the act of undressing by the woman can be seen,” it said.

Fraudsters then use this video to extract money from the victim by threatening to circulate the clip.

“Later on, the victim may even get calls from different numbers, with the callers impersonating police officers and asking you to pay a certain sum of money to prevent any complaints against you,” the police said.

The police requested victims to immediately report such incidents to the nearest cyber cell, “before you deposit any money in a fraudster’s account”.