Vijayawada: A 23-year-old man was arrested for befriending a 15-year-old girl from Vijayawada on social networking platform and later blackmailing and extorting money from her. Police tracked him down in Hyderabad and arrested him after seizing his mobile phone.
According to Machavaram Inspector Ch Prakash, the survivor was a class 10 student. Initially, posing as a girl, the accused sent a friend request to the 15-year-old through a fake Instagram profile. He started engaging in personal conversations with her and learnt about her boyfriend. Pretending to offer advice, he convinced the minor to share intimate photographs with him.
Later, he obtained her Instagram profile password and went through her previous chats in order to gather information that he could later use to blackmail her.
Following this, he threatened to expose her before her parents, the man extorted 5,000 from her, which she sent through her mother’s mobile phone. When she pleaded for him to not take the matter further, the man came up with more threats and later, sent her obscene videos to her mother.
After finding out about the incident, the girl’s family filed a complaint against the man with Machavaram police station. The cops started a swift investigation. Using digital forensics, police traced the fake social media profile of the accused, which led them to Hyderabad. The cops arrested the man from a hostel in the city.
During interrogation, it was revealed that the accused had dropped out of school after class 10 and worked as a tea master. He used a female voice app for phone calls to deceive the girl. Police seized his phone and deleted the illicit content. A case was registered under the Pocso Act and IT Act.
The inspector said that cybercriminals often use fake identities to exploit minors and advised never to share personal details or passwords online.
