Muscat: The Department of Combating Economic Crimes at the Directorate-General of Inquiries and Criminal Investigation has arrested a person on charges of fraud, cyber extortion, threatening, impersonation, violating human dignity and breaching the Cyber Crimes Law, a Royal Oman Police (ROP) official said.
The accused impersonated a security officer on one of the social media platforms to convince his victims of his ability to secure their personal accounts from being hacked. After collecting personal information, the fraudster gained control over the victims’ accounts and asked them for money by means of extortion. The scammer also posted a fake job advertisement for females and demanded personal information and account numbers and then asked his victims to send him indecent videos which he used to blackmail them later, the ROP official said.
ROP has advised citizens and residents not to share personal information and photos with others to avoid getting trapped in such fraudulent schemes, and not to respond to advertisements unless after verifying its authenticity from official sources.
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