A 21-year-old student in Bengaluru has been arrested for allegedly blackmailing women through a fake Instagram account, where he posed as a woman looking for a homosexual partner.
The accused is a student of a reputable college in Bengaluru. According to the police, he had created multiple fake accounts on Instagram and is suspected to have blackmailed more than 30 women, especially college students.
The police said the student first created a fake Instagram account during the lockdown, where he posed as one Prathiksha, uploading photos of other women.
In September last year, a woman befriended him on Instagram. She shared some private images and videos, using which the 21-year-old began to blackmail her. The woman blocked him but he continued to contact her from other fake accounts and threatened to circulate her videos. The woman then filed a complaint with Halasur police, who recently arrested him.
The police said that the man would tell his victims he was a lesbian “but was afraid of society”. To win their confidence, he would send the women nude pictures of “herself”. An officer said the man would pay Rs 4,000 for each nude picture sent to him.
Later, he used the same photos to blackmail the women, extorting Rs 4,000-Rs 10,000. All the money was shared through a digital wallet, said a police officer.