Background:
The accused posed to be a young girl living in Kolkata and lured a
non-resident Indian (NRI) working in Dubai (the complainant) to
enter into an e-mail correspondence. Subsequently, the accused
began corresponding with the complainant using different e-mail
Ids, under the guise of different female names which made the
complainant believe that he was corresponding with different girls.
Having won the confidence of the complainant, the accused asked him
for money and gifts. The complainant complied with the requests in
the hope of receiving sexual favours from the ‘girls’
he was corresponding with. However, after a period of time when
these favours were not forthcoming the complainant stopped its
correspondence. The accused then restored to blackmailing the
complainant by referring to the e-mail exchanges that had taken
place earlier. In addition, the accused led the complainant to
believe that one of the girls had committed suicide and that the
complainant was responsible for it. The accused also sent fake
copies of the letters from CBI, High Court of Calcutta, New York
Police and Punjab University etc. The complainant lived in constant
fear of being arrested in connection with the suicide over a year
and a half. He paid the accused a sum of INR 12.5 million
ostensibly to bribe the officials that were supposedly
investigating the suicide and to compensate the victim’s
family for the loss of her income. The complainant was continuously
under the threat of being arrested by the police. Given the huge
strain upon his financial resources as well as the mental agony
faced by him, the complainant himself contemplated suicide.
Investigation
The complainant handed over all the e-mail correspondence to the
police. Many of them had masked headers and therefore the police
could not investigate them any further. Moreover there was no
e-mail that could be traced to Kolkata where the accused was
staying as per the complainant’s version. However the
investigating team was able to trace some of these e-mails to the
corporate office of a large cement company and a residence in
Mumbai. A raid was conducted at these premises. In the raid one
computer, two laptops, seven mobile phones and a scanner were
seized. The computer equipment that was recovered was sent to the
office of the forensic examiner, who found all the evidences of
e-mails, chatting details etc. in the laptops and the computer.
During the investigation, property worth INR 0.9 million was
seized, along with cash worth INR 0.3 million. The total flow of
the extorted money was traced from the bank in Dubai to the account
of the accused person.
Case Studies 
