Haryana Police’s State Crime Branch has managed to recover Rs 11 lakh from a fraudsters' account that extorted Rs 24 lakh from a retired principal by impersonating themselves as cop and YouTube employee.  The cyber thugs blackmailed him in the name of deleting his obscene video. 

A Haryana Police spokesperson on Tuesday said that in his complaint, a retired principal told that he received a phone call on August 16  in which the caller poses himself as SHO Cyber Cell and said that his obscene video has been uploaded on YouTube. They will have to talk to the YouTube official to remove it. The alleged fake SHO gave the number of a YouTube official. Rs 31,500 was demanded by a fake YouTube official as a fee for deleting the video, which was paid by the victim immediately.

After this, the fake YouTube official demanded 1.26 lakh from the victim saying that there are 4 more videos which have to be deleted. And in the same way, sometimes in the name of getting the video deleted from Instagram and sometimes from WhatsApp, they kept extorting money from the victim.

The next time, another person who introduced himself as Superintendent of Police demanded Rs 5 lakh in the name of removing his name from the complaint. The victim paid the money through online mode. Taking advantage of his fear, fraudsters took another Rs 15 lakh from him. Cyber scammer also sent a false letter saying that this case had also gone to the CBI and we have got your name removed from this case.

As soon as the victim came to know about the fraud, he called on the 1930 helpline. The cyber team immediately freezed the transaction of Rs 11 lakh. A complaint has been filed and further probe is underway. 

Similarly, in another complaint, a Palwal resident lodged a complaint on 1930 and said that a girl made a video call from an unknown number and recorded the conversation. Later, the accused duped the complainant Rs 3 lakh by threatening to make the video viral. When the accused started harassing the victim further, he lodged a complaint on 1930. After receiving the complaint, the cyber team freezed Rs 87000.

The spokesperson said that this type of cybercrime is increasing as people do not file complaints out of fear of getting defamed.

Additional DGP, Crime, OP Singh, said the cyber team works to block the money as soon as the complaint is given on the cyber helpline 1930. He also urged the people to avoid video calls from unknown people on WhatsApp and friend requests on social media.