Team Herald
PANJIM: The Cyber Crime Branch of Goa Police on Wednesday warned people against the surge in fake video call scams and urged the public to be cautious of unknown individuals befriending through social media platforms.
In a video message, Superintendent of Police (Cyber Crime) Rahul Gupta, IPS, pointed out that the scammers often exploit these connections to place the victims in a compromising position and later try to extract money from them through blackmail.
Stating that men are more targeted than women by these fraudsters, he said, “There is another type of fraud which can be through video call. In this kind of fraud, the fraudsters generally target male citizens. A lady will befriend you saying she is a resident of a foreign country. She will have a profile picture of a foreign lady. She will talk to you nicely. Next day she will make a video call and she will be in a compromised state and ask you to be in the same state. Then she will click some screenshots and after the phone call is cut, she will start blackmailing you through her associate claiming to be a CBI official or a Mumbai Crime Branch official.”
“They will say that they have some pornographic content with you on it and to get it removed you have to pay some money, otherwise the video will be made public,” he said and advised people not befriend someone whom they do not know personally nor should get involved in a video call,” he said.
“You should first see whether the person is genuine or not then only you engage in a video call. Even if you fall prey to some video call and fraudsters claim that they have your photograph, you should not be afraid. They will not do anything with that. They only capitalise on the fear one may have. It is the threat which will cause you to transfer money. You should not get afraid, you should report it to the police station,” Gupta added.