Press Releases - Cyber Crime

Woman's face morphed on lingerie model's torso
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2004]

NEW DELHI : Crime branch officials are stumped by a complaint from a west Delhi-based woman who claimed her face was morphed on the torso of a lingerie model and put up on a US-based website that "promoted friendship between people of different sexes."

The woman is married and runs a fitness centre. Although the police managed to get her photograph removed from the website, they are unable to track the hacker who posted the picture.

Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Tajender Luthra said: "After receiving the complaint, the cyber crime cell unit immediately wrote to the company managing the website. On our request, the complainant's photograph was deleted from the website. But when we asked them to provide us with information on the person who could have done so, they declined to do so."

In their reply to the Delhi Police, the company claimed they did not share information about their business with enforcement agencies. Luthra said in most of the complaints pertaining to cyber crime, the Delhi Police is facing problems with regard to websites hosted abroad.

"Indian-based companies are ready to cooperate with our investigations. But foreign-based websites always refuse to help us. In such cases, we have to close the case as untraced," Luthra said.

According to the complainant, she learnt about her photograph on the website after she received calls on her mobile phone a month ago. The callers apparently asked her out and were willing to pay a cost for it. Initially, the complainant dismissed them as wrong calls. But when the frequency of calls increased, she got suspicious.

On inquiring from one of the callers, she learnt about the website. The caller also told her that her mobile number was posted on the website. After seeing the website personally, the complainant and her husband approached the crime branch and sought help.

After failing to solve the case technically, the Delhi Police has resorted to traditional methods of investigation. Believing it to be the handiwork of a disgruntled employee of the complainant, the police have sought a list of her former employees. The police are trying to verify their credentials.