Hyderabad: The Hyderabad Police arrested a 23-year-old youth in a honey-trap case for allegedly extorting and cheating victims of around Rs 25 lakh using different fake social media accounts created in women's names.
According to the police, the accused, identified as Kondabhattula Pavan Kumar, created 14 fake Facebook accounts and 13 Instagram accounts using girls' identities to extort money from victims. The police said Pavan blackmailed victims who had sent him nude photographs. He chatted with 1,000 people and collected nude photographs from 82 persons, the police said.
Charminar Police Commissioner Kiran Khare on Monday said Pavan sent friend and follow requests to people, chatted with them as a girl and gradually engaged them in sexual conversations.
He then asked the victims to send nude photographs and stored them on his different mobile phones and other social media accounts.
“Pavan then poses as the girl's brother and contacts the victims through phone calls, WhatsApp and social media, and meets some of them in person. He then threatens them by showing their photographs and videos and says he will make his sister file a complaint against them. In this way, he extorts money from them,” Khare said.
The accused also used three mobile numbers and two WhatsApp accounts for honey-trapping the various persons, Khare said.
Police found that Pavan used photographs of a Kolkata girl under the name Chandana for fake social media profiles. Hyderabad Police contacted the girl and alerted her about the use of her images.
The reported Rs 25.16 lakh includes Rs 18 lakh allegedly obtained through extortion and Rs 7.16 lakh through investment fraud, the police said in a statement.
The police seized three mobile phones, an HP laptop and a 16 GB pen drive from the accused.