Cybercrooks prey on rich women

Hyderabad: Some organised gangs are on the prowl in and around Hyderaba­d which know each and every movement of their targets and their family members.

And the gangs use social media for blackmail and extortion.

Many victims are not even coming forward to lodge complaints since the victims are worried that the private details available in the hands of extortion gangs might become public.

The cyber crime sleuths in the state capital are finding it very difficult to track such gangs and stop their operations.

Taking this to their advantage, the sophisticated gangs are targeting upper middle class and rich women, police sources said.

They cite the examples of two cases registered with cyber crime police stations very recently.

In one case, the complainant, Rupa (name changed), in her forties, informed the police that she has received mails on her business and personal mail ids from an anonymous email server account.

The pictures and content in the mails were self-destructive. The mailers demanded Rs 20 lakh ransom.

Initially, the complainant ignored the mails, but later sent a reply warning the mailers that she would inform the police if the threatening was not stopped.

However, the messages became more threatening and the gang that sent the mail claimed that they knew full details of the woman such as the location of the house and office, the school her son went.

The gang also claimed that it had pictures of the family members of the woman and every movement of each family member was being tracked.

To substantiate it, the gang claimed that it knew when the woman visited a beauty parlour, police sources said.

In another case, a woman in her forties received a message on her Facebook account.

She was shocked to see a private video clip of herself in the message. And the sender claimed himself to be a male.

The woman, Kavita (name changed), ignored the message but was forced to act when the same message was sent to her daughter.

The sender of the message claimed that he knew the college in which the woman’s daughter was studying and he would send the video clip to all her friends if his demands were not met.

Worried over this, Kavita lodged a complaint with the cyber crime police station.Those who are behind this extortion threats appear to be technically sound and very clever.

The gangs are targeting middle-aged women, particularly those who are socially active. It is easy for the gangs to strike such women, said police sources adding that very few victims come forward to lodge complaints in such cases.

Meanwhile, the cyber crime sleuths are working hard to solve the two cases to make sure that the gangs are brought to book and their conspiracy can be made public.