Criminal background checker creates legion of fake Instagram accounts

A man working for an agency that checks criminal backgrounds has been arrested for blackmailing women by creating their fake accounts on Instagram and sending obscene photographs and videos to their followers.

Kadugodi resident Jagadish, 24, would search for random women on Instagram and create fake accounts in their name. He would then send follow requests to other women or the followers of the original account holder. Once they accepted his request, he would send them messages seeking to chat with them. Later, he would send them obscene photographs and videos.

He would then contact the women whose account he had faked. Claiming to know the photographs and videos “sent” by the bona fide account holder, he would demand that they share their pictures and videos in a compromising position. When they refused, he blackmailed them. This way, Jagadish had built an extensive chain of fake accounts on Instagram until two affected girls, both minor, complained to the police.

One of the girls, a 17-year-old resident of KR Puram, told the Whitefield CEN police that she had received a follow request from an account in the name of Aditi Srinivas. Two days after she accepted the request, she received obscene photos and videos. She also got a message that she had “sent” her private videos and pictures. She was asked to share her private pictures and videos. When the girl refused to do so, she received a message from an account in the name of Monika Peddu.

The message carried multiple phone numbers, and the girl was asked to text and call on them. The message warned of uploading her private pictures online if she didn’t text on the number.

Following the complaint, police arrested Jagadish. A court remanded him in judicial custody on Saturday. A police officer said Jagadish appeared to have harassed many women in a similar fashion.