Mumbai’s cyber police have arrested Gulshan Kumar, a 24-year-old man from Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, for allegedly being part of a gang that extorted money from individuals through an online loan app. The gang used sexually morphed photographs to blackmail victims and extort significant amounts of money.
Kumar, who was arrested by a team from the Bandra police station’s cyber cell, played a crucial role in the operation by receiving the extorted money in various bank accounts, withdrawing it in cash, and passing it to an intermediary. This intermediary would convert the cash into cryptocurrency and send it to foreign destinations.
Police recovered nine debit cards and three mobile phones from Kumar, who has been charged under section 308(2) (extortion) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita and section 67A (publishing or transmitting sexually explicit material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act. He has been remanded to police custody until Friday.
The gang, which Kumar was allegedly a part of, lured victims to use a loan app offering short-term loans. Once users applied, they received phishing links disguised as document submission forms. Clicking on these links allowed the gang to access the users’ phone galleries and contact lists. They would then create sexually morphed images of the users to blackmail them for money, even if the loan had already been repaid. The gang utilized virtual private networks (VPNs) to mask their IP addresses.
