Conman altered woman's Facebook photos to blackmail her, Dubai court hears

An Indian man altered a woman's Facebook photos to make it look as if she were naked, then used the pictures to blackmail her, court hears.

DUBAI // A conman altered a woman's Facebook photos to make it look as if she were naked, then used the pictures to blackmail her, a court heard today.

AA, 38, from India, posted the altered images on the internet and emailed them to the woman's friends and family, before contacting her and her husband and threatening to scandalise them if they did not pay him money.

After making the demand in August last year he would call the couple up to 15 times a day. "He wouldn't say a word and sometimes he would call through the internet so we couldn't recognise the number," recalled the woman's husband FF, 24-year-old tourism agent from India.

She said she and some of her family members accepted Facebook friend requests from the man after mistaking him for someone they knew in India.

This gave him access to her online photographs, which he altered by pasting her face onto pictures of naked bodies and then emailed to her family.

"He also contacted my brother and told him that he knew me and was in a relationship with me and that my husband was a con artist who targeted women," recalled the woman.

The man was charged with issuing threats and with using Etisalat services to disturb the couple.

He confessed in the Criminal Court to both charges.

A verdict is expected on April 7.