Medical professional lured through ‘sex chat’ blackmailed; loses Rs 94 lakh

The doctor in his complaint said that in February this year, he met a woman who identified herself as Somya Awasthi on a social media platform. The woman said that she was pursuing her MBBS from Chandigarh and her parents were residing in Delhi.

He said they exchanged numbers and the woman would say she was feeling lonely. Over a period, she would ask for gifts and he would transfer money to a bank account provided by her. She never showed him the bills for the articles she purchased.

He said that eventually they got close and would have ‘sex chats’. He said she started sending her nude photographs to him and asked him to share his intimate photographs which he did. Later in May, she said she was coming to Mumbai and he paid for her business class tickets. However later when he checked there was no such flight coming on that day.

On May 2, the woman sent him a one view photograph which claimed that some Thailand-based hacker had got access to their photographs and chats demanding 3.10 bitcoin (Rs 2.5 crore approximately) failing which he would make their chats viral. The woman claimed that she had sold off her gold jewellery to pay him.

She then said that if he did not make the payment, she would send their intimate clips to his work place and medical association. Fearing this, he took loans from several banks and over a period sent her nearly Rs 94 lakh.

When he transferred the money however, the account name mentioned Jasmeen Kaur. He became suspicious and went through her social media profile and checked with the college she claimed to be doing MBBS from. There he found that a person named Somya Aswasthi had done Arts.

Realising that he had been defrauded, he approached the cyber police station where an FIR was registered on Friday. An officer said that they have some technical leads and teams have been sent to nab the accused.