The Smartphone Users Need To Be More Careful As New Way Of Cyber Frauds Are In Light.
Recently, a case of sextortion has come to light, where fraudsters are blackmailing individuals. This incident occurred in Mehwat, where scammers are trapping people using an app called “Friend Search for Chat Girl.” Through this app, fraudsters obtain people’s phone numbers directly from their profiles. It’s notable that these numbers are obtained from users’ profiles within the app. In particular, these scammers are targeting people from West Bengal, Bihar, Telangana, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, and Tamil Nadu.
The Bharatpur police recently conducted an operation under the Anti-Virus Act and registered 19 FIRs against 78 cybercriminals in the past month. It’s worth mentioning that scammers resort to sextortion to loot people because victims fear tarnishing their reputation and avoid reporting to the police, leading to substantial earnings for the scammers.
Here’s how the fraud is perpetrated:
Through the app, the fraudster obtains a person’s mobile number. The app provides an option where multiple mobile numbers from a specific state or country can be obtained. Once the fraudster gets a person’s mobile number, they enter it into this option along with the country and the state code.
Then, the app offers an option to create numbers, where the fraudster enters the number of desired creations, typically ranging from 100 to 200. This way, the fraudster obtains numbers of people from that state. Once the numbers are created, options like WhatsApp or Not Now are provided. Selecting the WhatsApp option sends a message to the new person’s WhatsApp.
Subsequently, the fraudster initiates a chat with the person and, based on their interest, proceeds to video call the individual, recording explicit content. This initiates the game of sextortion, where the fraudster blackmails the user.
