Aeronautical engineer lures, threatens girls on social media sites, arrested

The accused, identified as Arun Christopher, is a BE Aeronautical Engineering graduate and works as a temporary staff in the Electricity Board. One of his victims had approached the Adyar Cyber Cell and lodged a complaint saying that a man whom she befriended on social media had developed an intimate relationship with her and later had asked for her naked pictures. He had also made video calls to the girl and recorded them without her knowledge as he made the girl remove her clothes, a cyber sleuth said.

Police said Arun's parents are government teachers while a brother runs a business. After befriending a girl, Arun wins her trust with his conversation skill. Once he made a girl believe that he's in love with her, he would ask for their naked pictures and also record the video calls. He uses these pictures to get sexual favours later. He would even get the girl's social media ID and password, log into the account, select a few other girls from the victim's account and text them posing as the victim and ask for their mobile numbers. Later, he lures them also. When police picked him, they found his phone already formatted with all photos erased. But they soon realised that Arun had been hiding the videos in cloud storage with an Easy Vault app. This app enables one to hide the images in a purchased storage place, and Arun had stored hundreds of pictures of several girls.

Arun was booked under IT Act and Women Harassment Act. Police seized a laptop and two mobiles from him and remanded him in judicial custody.