What is Sextortion? How Serious is the Problem?
Tier three towns of Rajasthan and Haryana, such as Mewat, Bharatpur, and Alwar, are undergoing a heinous transformation. School-dropout teenagers and their illiterate but brilliant masterminds operate multi-national sextortion rings worth millions of dollars.
Police officers, legislators, businessmen, and doctors have all fallen victim to their schemes. India is the world’s sextortion capital, with more than a thousand incidents of sextortion reported every day.
Consider the case of a public representative (MLA) of Shiv Sena in Mumbai who was blackmailed in November 2021 by cyber criminal Mohammed Khan, who deployed cutting-edge ‘Deep fake’ artificial intelligence technology.
The offender was caught in Rajasthan after exploiting over 300 innocent victims and extorting over Rs 20 lakh.
In February 2022, cyber hackers Ravin Khan and Waris Khan from Bharatpur had the audacity to threaten Rajasthan minister Ram Lal Jat and BJP MP Pragya Thakur with filthy films.
Chitradurga G. H. Thippareddy, a senior BJP parliament member from Karnataka, received a video call on WhatsApp from an unidentified number.
During the brief call, the caller showed the MLA a woman’s privates, recorded the call on their computer, and then sent the video to Thippareddy’s number.
One of many “sextortion” cases reported in the state was this incident, which made headlines in Karnataka.
What Is Sextortion?
This specific type of extortion includes trapping someone in sexual actions, acquiring access to their private images and films, and so on.
The accused then threatens to expose such images and videos, as well as blackmail them into paying a large quantity of money. The demand for money might be one-time or spread out over time.
In other circumstances, the blackmailer may demand private photographs or films, as well as sexual favours. If you do not comply with their demands, the offender may threaten to damage one’s friends or relatives by exploiting private information taken unlawfully from your personal devices.
Modus Operandi
The criminal can acquire access to your private images or videos in a variety of ways. One method may be to hack into your technological gadgets. The other method is to entice the potential victim with sex conversations or a video call in which the ‘lady’ caller goes naked and asks the victim to do the same.
She then captures the two’s intimate moments and blackmails him into paying for not making the video popular on social media.
Who are the victims of Sextortion?
Anybody can fall for such a scam. In fact, it is alleged that the blackmailers did not even spare the military. They want to rob the unfortunate and credulous of as much money as they can.
Only a few such incidents have come to light because of the shame associated with it. Because complaining usually involves humiliation, people seldom do it.
When someone does, the information is so vague that it takes a lot of work to actually identify and arrest the person. These crimes are being investigated by several police divisions, and there have been raids.
Impact of Sextortion on Victims
The victims are trapped in a never-ending demand loop with the perpetrators and essentially turn into their slaves as a result of their dread of the sexual content’s exposure.
Depression and humiliation are the results of this mental attack. Unimaginable trauma victims experience depression that manifests in their behaviors, and thoughts. It could have a terrible effect on the victim as well as the victim’s entire family.
Publishing and exposing said pornographic information carries permanent harm. As a result, the victims are completely dependent on the offender.
They frequently experience loneliness and isolation, which leads them to self-harming behaviors such as engaging in dangerous drug experimentation. Sometimes the victims of such depression experience severe humiliation and remorse, putting their own lives in peril.
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Some Victims have even Chosen to End their Lives.
The saddest example came in March 2021, when BS Avinash, a 26-year-old MBA student in Bengaluru, committed himself after being traumatized by relentless extortion during a sex chat with a fictitious profile Neha Sharma.
He fell prey to the extortionists, and their evil schemes and even paid Rs 36,000. The suicide was aided by unrelenting ransom demands, which persisted even after his death.
The story of a former cabinet minister in Gujarat who was a victim of sextortion and paid Rs 2.5 lakh before reporting it to the police is particularly heartbreaking.
It turned out that the woman he was sexting was actually a deep-fake avatar made by cybercriminals Hakimuddin and his three relatives, who called it a “family business.”
Evolution of Sextortion
The first known instances of sextortion occurred in 2006 when a female journalist who lived in a studio apartment in a typical Mumbai neighborhood and was accustomed to online chatting was the target of a spear-phishing attack.
A malicious program called the video keylogger virus was then installed on the victim’s laptop. Therefore, everything she typed was saved on her laptop’s hard drive and sent via email to the cybercriminal.
All of the photographs from her WebCam were inadvertently transmitted after being accidentally turned on. The precisely compiled recordings and data were used to blackmail the unsuspecting victim. Following her suicide attempt, the girl received counseling.
Sextortion has taken Three Major Forms between 2006 and 2022
1. First-generation Sextortion:
Primarily targeting women, these crimes were committed by ex-lovers who threatened to publish their private photos as “revenge porn.” There were crude recording methods employed.
2. Second-generation Sextortion:
It involved the use of voice modification software, which changed male speech into female voice during calls, and fake profiles of attractive ladies made by male con artists.
Sexting through WhatsApp and subsequent naked video calls were used to lure victims into a honey trap.
Money mule bank accounts—bank accounts formed with fake documentation—were used to demand ransom. At this time, programs for screen recording, video editing, and morphing also appeared.
3. Third-Generation Sextortion:
During this stage, men extortionists began training and using attractive girls to lure victims. Sextortion became a kind of organized crime because of this ground-breaking discovery.
Since cryptocurrency wallets offered a better level of secrecy and impunity, money mule bank accounts were replaced.
Tips To Remember If You Are Being Sextorted
First, don’t be hard on yourself. It is the natural driving tendency of living beings that they are attracted to sexual activity. But the world is not fair and just, there are people who want to take the advantage of people’s personal activities.
Now you have to except that you are in a mess and things have been done that can’t be undone. Therefore, prepare yourself to fight it and don’t become a victim. Scammers’ lethal weapon is your fear and not the video.
Don’t pray to scammers they are not going to listen. Do you think that they have ethical value to listen to your prayers?
You don’t a plea to Lion when your head is inside his mouth, you fight. The first step to fighting back is don’t be afraid.
Don’t comply with their demand. Scammers will keep asking you for money once you start giving them. There are many incidents we have read about where demand started with 10K and people ended up giving more than 10 lakh rupees.
Therefore, try to bargain and try to get time for yourself so that you can ask for help from the Police or your loved ones.
Never try to solve such issues alone. Always tell somebody you trust, it is true that you might get scolded but getting scolded is way better than getting blackmailed. And since these crimes are on the rise people understand such things.
Tell your parents or friend, to file FIR immediately and if tell people on social media somebody is blackmailing you and you can report the account on social media platforms as well.
1. Do Not Be Afraid
There is no reason to fall victim to such criminals simply because you are too embarrassed to speak up. Come forward and file a complaint. You may be able to save someone from a similar fate by doing so. You can file a complaint at https://cybercrime.gov.in.
2. Don’t Comply With Any Demands
Don’t be scared and take matters into your own hands. Avoid complying with the threats and demands made by the blackmailer. This will land you in hot water, and the blackmailer will carry out his plan.
3. Gather All Evidence
Keep a record of all contact with the blackmailer, especially any demands or threats, and write down everything you know about them.
Inform Whatsapp, Dating, or any other app or social media service that was used. On the web, you can find helpful tips for reporting image-based abuse to social media platforms, as well as direct reporting links in the eSafety Guide.
5. Don’t Freak Out
Instead, reach out for help from a trusted friend or family member, or from a professional counseling and support service if you are feeling anxious or stressed.
6. Stop Communicating With the Blackmailer
Block them and request that your friends do the same. Consider deactivating your social media accounts for a time (but do not delete them as you may lose evidence that way).
Can One Avoid Becoming a Victim of Sextortion?
It is not difficult for social media users to avoid becoming a target of the perpetrators. Users who are more diligent and proactive can identify the wrongdoer before falling prey to them. Even if sextortion has occurred, it can be stopped.
The following are some tips for preventing sextortion:
- It is advised that people exercise caution while accepting any friend requests from unidentified parties in order to avoid falling victim to such scams.
- To use the privacy measures offered by social networking sites to prevent any information from being misused.
- Report sextortion and file your complaint to the relevant website online. The key step is to file an FIR in the Cyber Crime Wing of the Police.
- If the person on the other side is attempting to get closer, it is advised to be cautious.
- Never expose any private or intimate action online or let others see or record it.
- If needed, information regarding the platform and how the accused made contact will help in the inquiry. The information of the bank account(s), if any payment has already been made, and screenshots of the discussion or alleged profile on social media, SMS, email, etc. can also be helpful.
Are the laws in place sufficient to fight sextortion?
Although several laws in India recognize one or more features of sextortion, there is no formal law that covers the crime of sextortion.
- Section 384 of the IPC, prohibits extortion but somehow it does not cover the sexual and technical aspectss of it.
- The IT Act of 2000 specifies certain sexual offenses involving cybercrime, however, it does not address the changing aspects of cybersexual crime.
These two laws cover sexual abuse but fall short to deal with the acts pertaining to sextortion directly.
What Does the Government Need To Do?
1. Make a new statute to address these offences, or update the existing ones.
Since no law officially acknowledges sextortion, such instances are dealt with under various other regulations, yet the unique dynamics of this crime make the current law inadequate and ineffective.
Even after a successful prosecution, the punishment is far less serious than the offense committed. This has no effect on the crime rate.
And the culprit remains motivated to continue the crime. This critical issue cannot be resolved without new laws to cover the expanded field of sextortion or, at the absolute least, a modification to the current law to include sextortion.
2. Public Awareness
Awareness will play a big part in lowering crime rates and connecting people to fight sextortion together, creating a ripple effect of change. Proper information on the nature and pattern of the crime will serve as a warning anytime users of social media come across any cybercrime activity.
Advertisements, seminars, TV programs, etc. could all be used to raise awareness. They have an impact and aid in forming people’s opinions. Focusing awareness on the problem and its nuances can undoubtedly be a useful instrument to change how society views the victims.
The government must take specific actions to encourage businesses to create websites, adopt rules, and implement procedures that forbid sexual exploitation in any form so that criminals cannot use these platforms to carry out their crimes.
If these sites took proactive action after receiving complaints from potential victims, the number of incidents might be reduced to some extent.
To begin with, the complaint system needs to handle concerns swiftly and effectively so that the vast majority of individuals who use social media can benefit from the outcome.
Conclusion
Despite Sextortion being a new crime, the number of cases is rapidly increasing, posing a serious threat to the nation’s population. People are unaware, hence it makes it easier for cybercriminals to extort money from their victims.
There is a need for a thorough examination and study of Sextortion. So that the courts can pass a specific law covering all aspects and forms of this particular crime and punishing those who commit it severely. People must be protected from being victimized.
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