A 23-year-old professional working in a private firm was apprehended for extorting money from females by blackmailing them with their intimate photos, videos and impersonating as a US-based freelancer model through online dating and social media applications.

According to the cops, he used to target women aged between 18-30 by gaining their trust through fake profiles and photos. Once connected, he would request their contact information, eventually blackmailing them with intimate photos and videos to extort money.

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Deputy Commissioner of police (West), Vichitra Veer said, the cops received a complaint from a second year-DU student at Cyber West police station wherein she reported that in January 2024, she met a person on an online dating platform Bumble, who introduced himself as a US Based Freelancer Model who has come to India for some work.

They became friends and started to chat eventually sharing some intimate photos and videos on the mentioned platform. Moreover, she asked him to meet in person on several occasions, however, he declined by making excuses and eventually started to blackmail her to demand money and threatening to upload or sell them on the internet. The accused kept pressurizing the victim and initially, the girl tried to settle the issue by giving some money, however on being demanded more money, she reported the matter to the cops, Veer added.

 Following the complaint, with technical investigation, the suspect was apprehended from Shakarpur area of East Delhi, the official said. During interrogation, it transpired that the suspect had owned a virtual international mobile number for the last two years which he had obtained from an application and with help of that number; he had registered himself on various chatting, dating applications.

Moreover, after befriending girls, he used to chat with them and asked for their photographs and video clips and after receiving them he used to save videos or photos through screen recording. Initially the accused started all this for amusement but later, he started demanding money from them and if a girl did not pay then he used to extend threats to upload the intimate photos on different social media platforms or sell those on the internet.

During interrogation the accused had disclosed that till now he had talked to about 500 girls on the dating application and 200 on Snapchat and WhatsApp applications. The DCP also stated that so far, more than 60 chatting records with different girls of Delhi and nearby regions have been retrieved from his mobile phone and two bank accounts of the accused have been identified. Moreover, four other girls also have joined the investigation.