Naked-chat blackmail: How 55 men, 4 women in Hong Kong fell prey to video chat scam

The police also revealed that a fifth of the 1,102 victims of 'naked-chat blackmail' in the first half of this year were students. (Representational image: Unsplash)

In one week, 59 people in Hong Kong, including four women, were coerced into paying more than HK$1.9 million (about Rs 2 crore) after they were tricked into undressing during video chats by people they met online. The figures were revealed by the police who took to their Facebook page on Friday, reminding residents to be cautious when meeting people on the internet, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

Similar to honey traps, naked-chat blackmail usually involves extortionists using women to take off their clothes in front of their webcams and enticing male victims to do the same. The victims are then secretly recorded and the footage is used to blackmail them into paying exorbitant amounts to prevent the accused from sharing the videos online or with the victims' friends and relatives.

Now, however, scammers have also been masquerading as “highly educated, high-income and physically attractive” men to entrap women on social media. “They use sweet talk to learn about the victims’ personal lives and interests to manipulate them,” the Hong Kong police said. “In the past week, police received 59 cases of naked-chat blackmail, with scammers extorting more than HK$1.9 million. Four cases involved female victims.”

The police also revealed that a fifth of the 1,102 victims of “naked-chat blackmail” in the first half of this year were students. The fraudsters had blackmailed the victims into paying more than HK$31 million (about Rs 34 crore). Some of the students were as young as 11, SCMP reported.

Cases of naked-chat blackmail or sextortion have also been reported in India.

Earlier this year, the Kerala police issued a warning on honey traps and urged people against answering video call requests from unknown numbers or strangers. People making the video call may display nudity and then use it to blackmail the receiver for money, the police said.

In December 2023, two men were arrested in Rajasthan for trapping a man from Vadodara over a nude WhatsApp call and then extorting Rs 3.33 lakh from him.

In 2022, a Bengaluru man ended up paying Rs 5 lakh to the scammers after he was allegedly honey-trapped into going nude on a video call.