59 People, Including 4 Women, Tricked Into Getting Naked During Video Chats In Hong Kong

Police said the criminals use sweet talk to learn about the victims' personal lives and interests to manipulate them.

Four women were among 59 people who became the victims of extortion as fraudsters tricked them into undressing during video chats in Hong Kong, South China Morning Post reported. The accused then coerced them into paying HK$1.9 million (US$244,430).

Revealing the modus operandi of the scam, police revealed that extortionists, often women, take off their clothes in front of their webcams to lure male victims into doing the same.

They then secretly record these acts and use the footage to coerce victims into payment by threatening to share the videos online or with the person's relatives and friends. Police said the scammers also pose as "highly educated, high-income and physically attractive" handsome men to engage with women on social media.

"They use sweet talk to learn about the victims' personal lives and interests to manipulate them," the police said. "Police received 59 cases of naked-chat blackmail, with scammers extorting more than HK$1.9 million," they added.

Last month, police revealed that students accounted for a fifth of the 1,102 victims of "naked-chat blackmail" in the first half of this year. Fraudsters extorted HK$31 million from all the victims. Hong Kong recorded 24,407 reports of all types of deception in the first seven months of this year, 12 per cent more than 21,798 cases logged in the same period in 2023.

Woman Forced To Undress On Video Call By Cyber Criminals In Gujarat

A woman in Ahmedabad was threatened by cyber criminals who claimed that she was one of the accused under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The victim received a call on October 14 from someone claiming to be an employee of a courier firm. He informed her that a parcel containing three laptops, two cell phones, and 150 grams of mephedrone had been sent to Thailand under her name.

She was asked to join a WhatsApp call where a man posing as a CBI officer, who did not show his face, asked her to show all the birthmarks on her body. The victim initially refused, but fearing imprisonment, she undressed on the video call before a female official. The accused extorted Rs 5 lakh from the woman. A complaint has been lodged with Naranpura police in Ahmedabad against unknown individuals.