WeChat (Photo : trial and error/YouTube)
Male users of chat rooms and similar platforms never seem to learn these online places are full of danger for sex-hungry men.
In August, the Bucheon Wonmi Police Station in Korea busted a syndicate operated by three Korean-Chinese men who tricked 96 Korean men into naked video chatting and swindled from them 500 million won or $452,000 through blackmail. A similar scheme recently was used on more than 50 Chinese men using WeChat platform.
Global Times reported that victims had a chat with a female on the popular instant messaging service who engaged them in a nude chat, not knowing that their images and other personal information were saved and used to extort money from them later.
Their naked images were posted online, plus their personal information such as name, employer and location. The photos were uploaded on tieba.com, an online forum under Baidu, a Chinese tech giant, since September. However, the blackmailers – who have victimized government officials and teachers - stopped uploading the photo on Tuesday.
The personal information of the victims came from express delivery services, Beijing News cited a victim. The blackmailers, if caught, could be jailed up to 10 years for the production, copying, publication, selling or spreading pornographic materials for commercial purposes which breach the Criminal Law of China, according to Wang Youyin, a lawyer in Beijing.
Wang added the platform tieba.com must also be held responsible for the prevention of spreading illegal information.
Similar schemes have happened in other countries such as in the U.S. where a male student at Bradley University had a nude chat at Skype. The suspect hacked into his Facebook account and blackmailed him to pay $150, or else, the video would be posted on his friend’s Facebook accounts, PJStar reported.
