FB friend blackmails teen with parents' nude pictures, videos

Boy coaxed into giving material; cops see role of someone known to family

The father of a 13-year-old boy has approached the cyber crime police, saying the teenager’s Facebook friend had threatened to leak not only his nude pictures and videos but also those of his parents if they don’t pay up a ransom of Rs 1 crore.

The complaint was lodged on Wednesday and police are tracking the IP address of a Facebook profile named ‘Tejal Patel’ which stands deleted.

According to police, the teenager had accepted a friend request from Patel, said to be 21 years old, in June 2016 and remained in touch with the person whom he presumed to be a girl going by the profile picture.

In April 2017, the teenager and his online friend started exchanging pornography, including their own nude pictures and videos. They often chatted on Facebook and WhatsApp, sometimes for 10 hours at a stretch, police said.

One day, the friend asked the teenager to film his parents making love and send him the videos and pictures. The gullible boy walked into the trap and did as told. Once he had the pictures and videos, the friend started blackmailing the boy. He also threatened to contact his parents and share the pictures and videos with them. The teenager understood his ploy and refused to be blackmailed.

The friend, however, acted on the threat and contacted the boy’s father by demanding a ransom of Rs 1 crore for not leaking their pictures and videos online. The father was too dumbfounded to respond initially.

He checked his son’s mobile phone, and was stunned to find pictures and videos that were shot when he got intimate with his wife. The father quickly approached the jurisdictional police which directed him to file a complaint with the cyber crime cell in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Case under Pocso, IT Acts

The cyber crime cell has registered a case under various sections of the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act and the Information Technology Act.

Police suspect that someone known to the family was involved in the blackmail. The online friend knew too much about the family: the places visited by them, the father is a government employee and the mother works for a private company, police said.