Summary of this article
Jabalpur-based Instagram influencer has fallen victim to a digital extortion racket.
He has lost Rs 50 lakh in almost a year.
Tips on how you can safeguard yourself against fraud.
A Jabalpur-based Instagram influencer has fallen victim to a digital extortion racket. This is not new, as per the Press Information Bureau, a total of 22.64 lakh cases of cyber fraud have been reported. This is almost double that of 2022.
As for Azim Ahmed, he has lost Rs 50 lakh to cyber fraudsters who threatened to strike and ban his Instagram pages. Azim is a software engineer turned digital entrepreneur who has an online following of 57 million across 96 Instagram pages. He built this massive digital presence in 2017, which peaked during the COVID-19 lockdown.
He is also the co-founder of a digital marketing startup, Whoopy Digital. However, his success has made him a target for cyber fraudsters. He revealed that he's been receiving fake copyright strikes and threats for almost a year. These fraudsters claim his posts as their own and threaten him with copyright claims. As a settlement, they ask him for money in return for no claims and not getting him banned.
In the fear of losing his livelihood, he succumbed to their demands repeatedly. Over time, the threats escalated to phone calls and fake emails that mimicked Instagram's official communication channels.
These fraudsters call themselves mediators. Azim revealed one instance where a single fraudster demanded Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 to remove these fake strikes and settle the issue. The Cyber Cell in charge in Jabalpur confirmed the case and described this as a new form of exploitation that influencers face these days.
Fraudsters have used policies that safeguard users and turned them into a tool for extortion and other malicious crimes.
How Can You Protect Yourself From Such Crimes
In the digital age, there's no way you can be entirely bulletproof to cybercrime and fraud. There are only ways you can tackle this, and it comes from being steadfast in your decision-making.
Gather the evidence: Make sure you have all digital evidence of the communication between yourself and the fraudster. You can submit all the evidence online at the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal or by calling the cybercrime helpline 1930.
Do not pay the ransom: Paying ransom does not ensure that these activities will stop, nor does it ensure that your data will be protected. This might provoke them to do it again in the future.
