Naked truth: 4 men lured by woman via video call lose Rs 19 lakh

The fraudsters almost used the same modus operandi to extort money from three men in the last two months. Shockingly, one of them has been sending money to fraudsters since 2019. 

According to the complainants, the men had received friend requests on Facebook from women’s profiles named Monica Kumari and Sonali Mishra. Soon after they accepted the request, the ‘woman’ chatted with them and shared her phone number. The victims, who thought it was no harm to share a number, immediately got a video call on WhatsApp. On attending the call, a woman was posing nude. 

The women allegedly forced the men to mimic sexual acts for ‘fun’ on the call. However, the men were shocked to receive the recording of their acts a few minutes after the call ended and were threatened for money. 

When the college student reported the woman’s profile on Facebook and blocked her number, he came to know that the fraudsters shared his 

nude video to his eight friends on Facebook, including his mother. After sending Rs 7,900 to the fraudsters via PhonePe, the college student realised it is not just one woman, but a bigger gang behind the racket. The doctor, who pursues his masters in the city, lost about Rs 6,000. The two other victims, one from Nungambakkam lost Rs 1.93 lakh to the fraudsters, who called him and threatened him in the name of YouTuber and Crime Branch police. Another man from T Nagar, who lost Rs 17 lakh to the fraudsters came across the phone number on makemefriends.com. The cybercrime police of the Central Crime Branch has registered separate cases on the complaints and launched an investigation to find if the same gang was behind the incidents.