Singapore’s Bharatiya-origin Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan and many members of Parliament have received extortion letters which consisted of fake photos of themselves in obscene circumstances.
In a Facebook post, Balakrishnan said that many other MPs and himself received letters containing a fake distasteful image accompanied by a threat.
He said, ‘This conduct is disgraceful and contrary to the values and good practices that we are trying to inculcate in our society. We have filed police reports and will take appropriate legal action’.
Late Friday night the police said that the letters, which were sent by post to the victims’ workplaces, consisted of pictures of the victims’ faces superimposed onto obscene photographs of a man and a woman purportedly in an intimate and compromising position.
‘There have been atleast 70 police reports since March about such extortion letters’, according to the media reports. The letters warned of threatening consequences unless they contacted the email address provided.
The police said, ‘If the victims contacted the email address, they would be asked to transfer money to prevent compromising photographs and videos of themselves from being leaked and exposed on social media’.
Balakrishnan wrote on Facebook, ‘In this age of deep fakes and scams, we must take a strong stand against such conduct’.
He also added, ‘Inside was a distasteful photo where my face was digitally manipulated onto one of the figures, accompanied by an extortion demand’.
The police advised members of the public to ignore any instructions to start contact or to make transfers if they received such letters.
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