Crime Branch of the Haryana Police has managed to recover Rs 11 lakh going into the bank account of fraudsters who extorted Rs 24 lakh from a retired principal by identifying themselves as a cop and YouTube employee. The cyber thugs blackmailed him in the name of deleting his obscene video.

A Haryana Police spokesperson said on Tuesday that in his complaint, a retired school principal said that he received a phone call on August 16 morning, in which the caller identified himself as the Station House Officer (SHO) Cyber Cell and said that his obscene video has been uploaded on YouTube and they will have to talk to YouTube official to remove it.

The alleged fake SHO gave the number of a YouTube official. Rs 31500 was demanded by a fake YouTube official as a fee for deleting the video, which was paid by the victim immediately. After this, the fake YouTube official demanded Rs 1.26 lakh from the victim saying that there are four more videos which have to be deleted.

And in the same way, sometimes in the name of getting the video deleted from Instagram and sometimes from WhatsApp, they kept extorting money from the victim. The next time, another person who introduced himself as Superintendent of Police, demanded Rs 5 lakh in the name of removing his name from the complaint. The victim paid the money through online mode.

Taking advantage of his fear, fraudsters took another Rs 15 lakh from him. The cyber scammer also sent a false letter saying that this case had also gone to the CBI and we have got your name removed from this case.

As soon as the victim came to know about the fraud, he called on the Toll-Free Helpline number ‘1930’ to report any financial fraud committed via cyber means. The cyber team immediately freezed the transaction of Rs 11 lakh. A complaint has been filed and further probe is underway, the spokesperson said.

Similarly, in another complaint, a Palwal resident lodged a complaint on ‘1930’ and said that a girl made a video call from an unknown number and recorded the conversation. Later, the accused duped the complainant Rs 3 lakh by threatening to make the video viral.

When the accused started harassing the victim further, he lodged a complaint on ‘1930.’ After receiving the complaint, the cyber team freezed Rs 87000. The spokesperson said that this type of cybercrime is increasing as people do not file complaints out of fear of getting defamed.

Additional Director General of Police, Crime, OP Singh said the cyber team works to block the money as soon as the complaint is given on the cyber helpline 1930. He also urged the people to avoid video calls from unknown people on WhatsApp and friend requests on social media.