Thai police are urging people to be vigilant when it comes to sharing intimate photos or videos with strangers online. In addition, people should also be careful in their relationships and not risk sending intimate photos of themselves because it can be dangerous if the relationship ends.
Colonel Sirivat Dipor of the Law Enforcement Agency's Technology Crime Unit warned couples not to make any explicit Valentine's Day videos that could potentially lead to future blackmail. This phenomenon, known as "sexual extortion", can come from a person who is in a relationship or a stranger who, under various pretexts, was able to persuade the other to send personal photos in a personal correspondence. Then, these photographs can be used for extortion - obtaining money or sexual favors - under the threat of their public exposure.
Sexual extortion is just one of many different types of love crime, but it tends to cause serious financial and reputational damage.
The deputy commander, Colonel Sirivat, described a second scheme of romantic fraud, when impostors use the images of attractive foreign people for virtual dating, and then, after receiving intimate photographs of the victim, they blackmail them and extort money.
