Undescribed cities like Mewat, Bharatpur, Alwar in Rajasthan and Haryana are ushering in a satanic revolution. School dropouts and their uneducated but cunning masterminds run sextortion rackets that are spread across many countries and earn millions. Police officers, politicians, businessmen, doctors have all fallen prey to their conspiracies. India has over 500 cases of sextortion daily (less than 0.5% are registered as FIRs), making it the sextortion capital of the world.
Consider the case of a public representative (MLA) of the ruling Shiv Sena in Mumbai, who was sexually assaulted in November 2021, where cyber crook Mohammad Khan used state-of-the-art ‘deep fake’ artificial intelligence technology to blackmail an MLA. did. The criminal was arrested from Rajasthan, but before that he had exploited more than 300 gullible victims and extorted over Rs 20 lakh.
Equally bright is the case of Rajasthan minister Ram Lal Jat and BJP MP Pragya Thakur in February 2022, where Bharatpur cyber crooks Ravin Khan and Waris Khan had the potential to threaten with obscene videos. However, the saddest case happened in March 2021 when BS Avinash, a 26-year-old MBA student in Bengaluru, committed suicide after being hurt by persistent extortion while having sex chats with the pseudo-profile Neha Sharma. He fell victim to the evil designs of the sexual abusers and even had to pay Rs 36,000. Continuing ransom demands were abetted to suicide, which continued after his death.
Particularly poignant is the case of a former cabinet minister in Gujarat who became a victim of sexual abuse and paid Rs 2.5 lakh before the police was alerted and it turned out that the woman he was sexting with was also a woman. No, it was a deeply fake avatar. Cyber crooks Hakimuddin and his three relatives called it a ‘family business’.
What is sextortion?
Sextortion is a malicious online crime whereby cybercriminals threaten to distribute or ‘viral’ personal, sensitive and sexually explicit material relating to a victim if she is not provided with sexual favors, images of a sexual nature, or money.
modus operandi
Sextortionists zero in on relatively affluent men aged 45 to 60, grappling with the sexual monotony of the middle age crisis. Weeks or months of digital reconnaissance missions are undertaken to identify targets and collect relevant information.
Fake profiles of extremely attractive lady are already created and meticulous care is taken to make them look realistic i.e. longer chronology of profiles, regular updating, or uploading of attractive and realistic pictures regularly etc. Friend requests are sent to identified targets from these fake but real profiles. The requests are from highly friendly and attractive attractive women in platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Tinder, dating or even matrimonial sites.
At this stage the technical aspects are shelved and a psychological technique called ‘social engineering’ is used to gain the trust of the gullible victim. Social engineering refers to the psychological tricks used by criminals to manipulate victims through deception and fraud.
The scammers then entice and induce them to engage in video calls of sexual orientation, usually by indulging in lewd video calls to the female partners of the gang and recording them using an inbuilt or downloaded screen recording app. is inspired. These recorded fetish clips then become a means of extortion causing untold trauma to the victim.
With over 700 million smartphones (each acting like a powerful computer in itself) in India, the pastures for sextortion to spread are wide. This, coupled with the extreme hypocrisy and stigma attached to sexual desire in Indian society, facilitates a favorable breeding ground for unsuspecting victims.
Sextortion is a painful, horrific and inhumane violation that removes the shame and social stigma of the victims. More often than not, this ordeal ends with the victim killing herself.
development of sextortion
The earliest cases of sexual abuse date back to 2006, when a female journalist living in an exclusive studio apartment in Mumbai and in the habit of online chatting, became the victim of a spear-phishing attack where a malicious code called video keylogger virus was installed on her laptop. it was done.
As a result, everything he typed – all the keystrokes – was recorded on his laptop’s hard disk and transferred to the cybercriminals via email. Even his webcam was inadvertently turned on and all images were transferred likewise. All videos and data were carefully matched and used to blackmail the gullible victim. The girl attempted suicide and was later counselled.
Similarly, another case of cyberbullying along with sexual harassment is the celebrated case of suicide of American teenager Megan Mayer, who hanged herself a few weeks before her 14th birthday. Allegedly, Megan’s classmate Sarah Drew and her neighbor’s mother, Laurie Drew, created a fake profile of ‘Josh Evans’, a smart teenager who regularly chatted with Megan romantically, and gained her trust and Received information about her extreme private photos and issues. affecting his mental space. Intense cyber bullying and threats to expose Megan as a ‘bad girl’ shakes her psyche and drives her to commit suicide.
The change in attitudes towards extortion coincided with the tragic suicide of Daniel Perry, a 17-year-old British teen in 2013, after paying US$10,000 to the world’s first sophisticated sextortion organized syndicate run based in the Philippines due to the traumatic effects of sextortion. Happened. by Maria Caparas, aka, ‘The Queen of Sextortion’. She was a ‘slumdog millionaire’ who rose like a phoenix from the slums of Manila to a royal mansion that became the headquarters of the world’s largest sextortion empire.
Her mansion had at least a hundred well-equipped cubicles where teenage boys were employed to ‘dress up and talk like attractive girls’ and honey trap victims around the world. Daniel’s suicide shook the world and Interpol also named Operation ‘Strikeback’ as ‘Goya’ and arrested the ‘Queen of Sextortion’, but not before she had committed at least 1 billion through illegal rackets. USD was not deposited.
The dazzling irony is that ‘Archie Tallinn’ was identified as the man who abetted Daniel’s suicide, not even a girl but a young Philippine boy whom Maria herself had trained and still caught. Has not gone. Maria, in turn, was cleared of all charges and was released within a year for allegedly bribing the police and judiciary.
The poignant words of Daniel’s mother Nicola Perry are epiphanous and strike a laxative melody – “Daniel’s way of death is every parent’s nightmare. If we have to make sure no other parent loses a loved one , so take care to make your child aware not to share intimate photos or personal information online.
Thus, from 2006 to 2022, extortion has appeared in the following four incarnations:
First Gen Sextortion 1.0Women, primarily, were victims of isolated lovers who threatened to release their intimate photos as ‘revenge porn’. Primitive recording devices were used.
2nd gen sextortion 2.0 : Fake profiles of attractive girls were created by male scammers and a believable world was created using technological tools like voice modulation apps which changed male voice to female voice on VOIP calls. Money mule bank accounts (bank accounts opened with forged documents), used to demand ransom, sexting on WhatsApp followed by strip video calls used to honey trap victims. Screen recording, video editing, morphing apps also emerged in this phase.
Third Gen Sextortion 3.0: During this phase, male extortionists began employing and training beautiful girls to trap victims. It was a pioneering development and promoted sexual exploitation to the status of an organized crime syndicate. Money mule bank accounts were replaced by cryptocurrency wallets, which provided a high degree of impunity and anonymity.
4th Gen Sextortion 4.0: Innovative, latest and pioneering stage, where there is no need to lure prey or engage females in honey traps. ‘Deep-fake’ and ‘deep-nude’ techniques have ensured that anyone can be subjected to sexual abuse without any online sexual interactions or misconduct.
deep-fake and deep-naked
The term deep-fake is derived from the combination of ‘deep learning’ and ‘fake’. Deep learning is an artificial intelligence-based technology that precisely mimics a victim’s face, emotions, expressions and body language in a given video to the face of a porn actor. It is done in such a sophisticated manner that the fake video looks absolutely authentic and genuine.
The Deep-Nude app goes a step further and creates a truly authentic nude photo or video of a victim woman in a matter of seconds. There is absolutely no need to source pornographic videos of the girl matching the victim’s profile and body type, photoshop the video clips and even then the results were not impeccable. Deeply fake and deep nude apps give diabolical, instant and flawless results.
Renowned Indian female journalist Rana Ayyub was regularly trolled a few years back and received rape threats on online platforms in abusive campaigns, due to her symbolic writing style.
When he protested against the supporters of a child rapist in Kathua, he experienced unprecedented horrors and had to be hospitalised. A very finely crafted deep-fake video of Rana Ayyub surfaced, which graphically depicted the woman indulging in sexual activity like a porn actress. Her number was flashed in the video and she was flooded with thousands of calls.
The video was shared across all major platforms and reached his phone as well. She was devastated and was unconscious for days. Similarly, all the major celebrities have already fallen prey to deep-nude videos like Angelina Jolie, Emma Watson, Aishwarya Rai, Katrina Kaif and the list is endless.
The perverse pleasure of seeing famous female celebrities without clothes is what fuels the popularity of these apps, which are insensitive to heavy trauma. Maharashtra Cyber Department has already started proposing to ban the above apps.
Security: While sextortionists can use all available means to harass, embarrass, traumatize and control the victims, it is high time to take the demon head-on and raise awareness and socialize the evil of sextortion. The stigma should be removed.
It is worth noting that the Internet never ‘forgets and forgives’ and its reach and spread is very fast and vast. Our young generation with impressionable minds should be groomed to ensure that they never indulge in obscene video calls and alarm bells should be sounded if a stranger rushes to develop intimacy. The racketers need to be reported and brought to justice fearlessly.
Disclaimer
The views expressed above are those of the author.
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