A Gurgaon Man Allegedly Pretended to Be a Woman to Fool a Million Social Media Followers

As India’s economy changes, its get-rich-quick jobs have changed too. On April 26, the Delhi Police arrested a former call centre employee who has been charged with creating fake social media accounts in order to earn money by fooling brands into believing he was a female social media influencer.

Akash Chaudhary, 34, was a resident of Gurgaon and worked in a meat shop. According to Chinmoy Biswal, deputy commissioner of police, and Rajiv Malik, inspector with the Delhi Police’s Cyber Crime Cell, Chaudhary claimed to be a commerce graduate from Patna during his interrogation. He moved to Delhi in 2004, and started working in a call centre. In 2012, he and his father opened a meat shop.

Four years later, armed with a new smartphone and SIM card, he hatched a plan to earn quick money. The police told VICE that Chaudhary aspired to become a social media influencer. First, he downloaded Instagram and Facebook, then he followed women on both sites, collecting pictures of them. After he had about 50 pictures of one woman, he created a fake account, from which he’d send friend or follow requests to men.

Malik told VICE that Chaudhary didn’t think he was doing anything wrong, or that he could get caught. In two years, he opened six Facebook accounts and several Instagram profiles. Gradually, one of his accounts got one million followers.

Chaudhary approached men on the pretext of a raunchy chat, asking them to pay him money via an e-wallet connected to his bank account. The Delhi Police said he cheated at least 10 men this way. “He also blackmailed them that he would post the chats online,” Malik told us. One businessman from Mumbai sent him Rs. 70,000.

Claiming to be a “lifestyle blogger”, Chaudhary also allegedly invited advertisements for the promotion of luxury apparel, and charged money for the promotion of certain brands from about five to seven companies. Products like shoes, watches, sunglasses, clothes, and cab service were included, and brands like @a2z_collections1, @_accessorieshub_ and @olaeindia. Biswal said “From each company he used to take revenue per month for promotion of their product on his fake Instagram account.”

Early this year, a Delhi woman found herself being accused of extortion by a stranger online. The woman grew suspicious when he claimed he had paid her via e-wallet. Searching on Instagram, she found the fake account stealing her pictures to impersonate her. She dug a bit deeper and found similar imposter accounts.

The woman asked the imposter to delete the fake accounts. He threatened to use her pictures on an escort services sites and “defame her”, the police said.

In January, the woman lodged a complaint at Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar Police station, which transferred the case to the Cyber Crime Cell. Malik said his cell got in touch with Google, Facebook and Instagram, which shared data with them. The police were able to generate an IP address based on the imposter’s most frequent log-in times. “When we found the IP address, it was just a matter of time,” said Malik. He said that while Chaudhary first denied everything, he eventually confessed to the alleged crime.

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