KOCHI: An
NRI
woman from
Kottayam
filed a police complaint that an unidentified person was trying to extort money from her after he allegedly morphed her photos.
The accused had converted her
Facebook profile picture into a nude image and shared it with her through Facebook chat. Police have filed a case under the IT Act. The case is now being investigated by a team led by ACP K V Vijayan. Police said that a probe was on to trace the IP address from which the accused had contacted the woman.
"The accused contacted the woman using a Facebook profile named 'Donna Mathew' and messaged her that he has several nude pictures of her. He demanded Rs 2 lakh in return for not making the pictures public. The accused then shared an account number belonging to one Sebastian Joshi from Eloor and asked her to deposit money in the said account,'' said Eloor SI Premlal. Police then detained Joshi on Saturday. However, he was let off by the police after interrogation, due to the lack of evidence. The victim, who hails from Kottayam, works as a housemaid in Israel.
"The said bank account belongs to an Eloor native. However, the man is a school dropout and an alcoholic. The chances of the man creating a Facebook profile and morphing pictures are remote. Besides there was no direct evidence against him, this led us to believe his claim that he is not an accused," said a senior police officer at Eloor police station.
Police said that the accused offered Joshi a job in
Mahe
and got a scanned copy of his identity card to create a bank account under his name.
"The accused asked the man for a copy of his identification card and then scanned the card using his mobile phone. Using the data, he created the bank account and asked the woman to deposit the money in the account," said the officer.
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