Fake recruiter used AI images to blackmail teenaged girl, arrested

New Delhi: It arrived as a 'one-time view' WhatsApp message — a fleeting glimpse of an absolute nightmare. In that single, sickening moment, the college student stared at her own face seamlessly grafted onto an obscene, AI-generated image.Before the cold sweat of shock could dry, the invisible cyber predator struck. Operating on Snapchat, the blackmailer warned: Pay Rs 40,000, or watch the fabricated photo go viral.The terrified teenager desperately negotiated, eventually rushing to a neighbourhood kiosk to transfer Rs 10,000 via a scanned QR code. In the lawless realm of cyber-extortion, compliance only means relentless demands for more money.The extortionist pressured the target to compromise her friends, demanding the contact numbers of other young women to feed his trap. When she refused and deleted her social media accounts in a desperate bid to go dark, she was again threatened with an “exposure”. Realising there was no running away, she walked into the cyber north police station .DCP (north) Raja Banthia formed a team, which was led by inspector Rohit Gahlot and included woman sub-inspector Hanshul Gupta. For days, the team reverse-engineered the suspect’s electronic footprint, tracking IP addresses, bank routing nodes and encrypted chat logs. The digital breadcrumbs eventually led to a physical location deep within the alleyways of north Delhi.Finally, a few days ago, police raided the Bhalaswa Dairy area and unmasked 30-year-old Sourav, a school dropout and unassuming private finance company employee. After the arrest, he told police that he used to pose as a job recruiter on social media platforms, targeting young women.Once he gained their trust, he requested resumes and lured them into mandatory "video verification calls”. As they spoke, he surreptitiously captured screenshots of their faces, later feeding the images into sophisticated AI tools to generate explicit photos.A deeper dive into his criminal history revealed that Sourav was a serial offender with a history of stalking and sexual harassment. With his phone, SIM card and Wi-Fi router seized as digital DNA, Banthia confirmed that the accused would be prosecuted under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.