A front-page report in this paper cited one of the fallouts of the pandemic. Loneliness and the virtual world we have been forced to inhabit have resulted in many, especially among the youth, willing to connect with unknown people online and in the process, getting lured by fake accounts. This is happening on Facebook and Instagram.

The modus operandi of the crooks is to lure people into having a video call, morph their pictures or take screenshots of them on these chats and threaten to make them public. The sextortionists are having a field day blackmailing terrified users with threats of naming and shaming them.