HYDERABAD: A new form of cybercrime has emerged where victims receive emails from scammers posing as Intelligence Bureau officials scaring them of arrests for watching child pornography.
Apprehensive about this, despite not indulging in an activity involving child pornography, victims have given into this crime.
According to information, these scammers first send such emails and threaten victims of arrest if they don’t receive a response within 24 hours. In this particular scam, criminals directly target Central government institutions and use the signatures and seals of officials to make the emails appear legitimate.
A woman based out of Hyderabad received an email along with a letter attached to it. The letter read: “By the mandate of Mr Tapan Deka, Director of the INTELLIGENCE BUREAU; in partnership with INDIAN CYBER SQUARD and BUREAU OF POLICE RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT; which is the National Nodal Agencies for INTERPOL in India: I, hereby notify you of a computerized seizure of cyber-infiltration captured on your internet protocol address (IP) relating to the following analysis:-
**CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, **PEDOPHILIA, **CYBER PORNOGRAPHY
SEXUALLY EXPLICIT EXHIBIT, **GROOMING CERTIFIED COPY
The Criminal Code of India, Section 14 of the POCSO Act 2012, Section 292, Section 67A, and Section 678 of the Information Technology Act, of 2000 criminalizes the publication or transmission of sexually explicit acts or conduct in electronic form of juvenile pornography and is punishable on first conviction by imprisonment.
For discretion sake, I decided to reach you privately before transferring your case files to the tribunal prosecutors for immediate prosecution.
With immediate effect, respond to this message and state your justifications for a further review before appropriate sanctions will be imposed within 24 hours.
Failure to respond within 24 hours from now, the prosecutor will establish a warrant of arrest against you through the closest police station.
After prosecution, your information will be sent to the national register for minor sex offenders, associations fighting against PEDOPHILIA and to the media for publication. Respond immediately, ending the letter with the official’s signature and the seal of the organisation.
While some have laughed it off with the email, several victims have given into this, and sometimes, more than one transaction was made to scammers.
On reddit, a user posted, “An email came to my father’s email address, saying that I was visiting porn sites and watching it. I have not seen the email personally but I have been told it came from a name and it tells to answer some questions. I admit I visited a few sites before but didn't give any email or number. So is this real or a scam? Please answer me as I just turned 18 so it is a delicate topic between me and my parents. Thank you for your help.”
Another victim posted, “I'm being sextorted and have already sent them some money. After looking through this sub, it seems the best countermeasure is to just block them and deactivate socials. I'm going to do that but I was thinking of sending a last message before I do explaining that went to the authorities and that they're in possession of child porn and that I'll be cutting contact with them. Is this a good idea or could it make the scammer mad enough to leak those pics.”
When contacted, Shikha Goel, director of Telangana Cyber Bureau, said, “The letter is clearly fake. However, it is important to understand that any enforcement authority would never send an email to anyone. A common protocol is that the Intelligence Bureau would contact the cyber security department of that state in any such case and only then the case would be taken further. Even arrests are not made so easily. It takes time and the person involved is intimated.”
When asked about whether any such cases were reported in Telangana, she said, “Very few, for most part of it, people are apprehensive and ashamed of revealing such details. They shouldn’t be, and they should be very careful about what they are falling for.”
