Pune: The cyber police have arrested a 25-year-old employee of an e-commerce company for allegedly cheating his friends and family members of amounts ranging from Rs15,000 to Rs52,000 over the past two to four months, by creating fake and obscene profiles of them on social media platforms.Senior inspector Swapnali Shinde of the Pune cyber police station said, “We arrested Kunal Jain (23), a resident of Sinhagad Road, earlier this week. He works at the office of an e-commerce company in Wadgaonsheri. We secured his four-day police custody, which concluded on Tuesday, and the court remanded him in magisterial custody on Tuesday evening.”Jain’s close friend (40), a resident of Kondhwa, lodged a police complaint about 15 days ago, the officer said.Shinde added, “As per the complaint, Jain took photographs of the complainant and used AI tools to make them obscene. He then created a social media profile in the complainant’s name and later showed the photographs to him. The complainant was taken aback. Jain then told him that he had good contacts in the police department and could help him remove the social media profile and its links. Jain later visited the cyber police station and sent photographs of the police station to the complainant to make him believe that he was indeed there. He then called the complainant and asked him to transfer Rs15,000 to him to pay police personnel to remove the link.”“The complainant transferred the money to Jain, who then deleted the profile. The complainant later visited the police station to thank the police personnel, when the matter came to light,” Shinde said, adding, “After realising that Jain had cheated him, the victim decided to lodge a complaint.”The police started searching for Jain and found that he frequently moved between Narhe and Wadgaonsheri. “We tracked down his relatives based in Vimannagar. His aunt and her family members stay there. His uncle then told us that Jain had cheated him of Rs52,000 in the same manner. After receiving the money, Jain deleted the obscene profile of his uncle,” Shinde said.“Jain’s uncle has lodged a complaint at Chandannagar police station, and we have decided to take over the case for further investigation. We suspect that he has cheated several others in this manner,” she said, adding, “We are examining his mobile phone and other electronic devices, and found that the AI tool used by Jain had repeatedly warned him that he was carrying out illegal activities. Despite this, Jain continued to create obscene photographs.”
