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New Delhi: Businesspersons in Delhi have received around 160 extortion calls till October this year, averaging one call every other day, giving the fraternity sleepless nights. The majority of these calls originate from foreign-based gangsters or their associates, using Voice Over Internet Protocol or international phone numbers, police sources said on Tuesday. According to the sources, the calls were received mostly by builders and property dealers, jewellers, and owners of sweet shops and car showrooms across the city. Around 160 extortion calls to businessmen have been reported till October (around 300 days) this year. In some cases, the calls were followed by firing outside the house of the office of the targeted individual, a source said. Last week, seven such cases were reported in just four days where gangsters targeted a jeweller, gym owner, property dealer, sweet shop owner and a motor workshop owner among others. In one such incident reported from Rohini on November 5, three men entered a showroom and fired in the air. They left behind an extortion note with the names of gangsters and an amount written on it. "Yogesh Dahia, Fajje Bhai and Monti Mann and Rs 10 crore", said the note. In another case on November 7, a call was made by an international number demanding Rs 7 crore from a gym owner in Nangloi. The caller claimed to be associated with jailed gangster Deepak Boxer, who is an associate of Lawrence Bishnoi. In all the seven cases, FIRs have been registered and separate teams of the Special Cell and Crime Branch are working to nab the culprits, a police officer said. According to the Delhi Police's statistics accessed by PTI, a total of 133 extortion cases were reported from across the national capital till August 15, this year. A total of 141 such cases were reported during the same period last year and the figure for 2022 was 110, according to the statistics. Police said 204 cases of people getting extortion calls were reported throughout 2023 and 187 in 2022. A police officer, who handles such cases, said the callers mostly use VOIP numbers or WhatsApp numbers taken on fake SIM cards. Sources said police have identified 11 gangs involved in making the extortion calls as well as shootings and murders in the national capital region in the last few months. The gangs include Lawrence Bishnoi-Goldy Brar, Himanshu Bhau, Kapil Sangwan alias Nandu, Jitender Gogi-Sampat Nehra, Hashim Baba, Sunil Tillu, Kaushal Chaudhary, Neeraj Faridpuria and Neeraj Bawana. Except for Gogi and Tillu, who died due to gang rivalry, the majority of these gangsters are behind bars or based abroad, police said.

160 extortion calls in 300 days: Delhi businessmen threatened every other day

Duping people off Rs 500 crores, gifting an <keyword id="6363321" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Audi">Audi</keyword> to impress his girlfriend, making Rs 150 crore a day- this may sound like a typical <keyword id="143" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bollywood">Bollywood</keyword> movie centred on an underworld don. You might also wonder if this is the real Wolf of the <keyword id="42111" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Wall-Street">Wall Street</keyword>. But wait, this is as REAL as it gets- this is the brief description of a 23 year old guy from Mumbai. <keyword id="38454" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sagar">Sagar</keyword> <keyword id="1346781" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Thakkar">Thakkar</keyword> aka <keyword id="215528" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Shaggy">Shaggy</keyword>, the mastermind of the multi-crore extortion racket used to run a call centre at <keyword id="6385909" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Mira-Road">Mira Road</keyword>. 
 As per media reports, Sagar’s father couldn’t keep his business afloat, which is when they shifted their home to <keyword id="6383000" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Nallasopara">Nallasopara</keyword> from <keyword id="77815" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Borivli">Borivli</keyword>. To make both ends meet, Sagar started working in call centres. While he was still working with call centres in <keyword id="29128" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="ahmadabad">Ahmadabad</keyword>, he used to sell private data of common people to fraudsters. 
 Soon after he formed a team with his school mates and started a call centre. They had all the data from previous organizations they have worked for. They would call unsuspecting US citizens and threaten them to reveal their income details to <keyword id="6355946" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="FBI">FBI</keyword>. They would blackmail these US citizens and earns money. Each day they were earning Rs 150 crores. 
 The modus operandi, according to Thane Police Commissioner <keyword id="6414617" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Param-Bir-Singh">Param Bir Singh</keyword>, was simple. The caller would begin the conversation telling the listener the badge number and name of the <keyword id="6359816" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="IRS">IRS</keyword> official. They would threaten the Americans saying if they didn’t pay up, then the police would raid their home in the next half hour. Investigations showed the calls were made through Voice Over Internet Protocol (<keyword id="54765" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="20" keywordseo="VoIP">VoIP</keyword>). The accused had spoofed the toll number of IRS. So when the victim received a call, <keyword id="224849" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Internal-Revenue-Services">Internal Revenue Services</keyword> would flash on their phone. Most victims paid between $500 (Rs 30,000) to $60,000 (Rs 4o lakhs). 
 Sagar’s ambition to become rich and his fantasy for luxury knew no bounds. He owns a Audi TT, Bentley, BMW, Bugatti and some more luxury cars in his stable. He would come to office in chauffeur driven cars surrounded by body guards. On one occasion, he gifted his girlfriend an <keyword id="529178" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Audi-R8">Audi R8</keyword> priced at around Rs 2 crores. 
 However the <keyword id="44723" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Federal-Bureau-of-Investigation">Federal Bureau of Investigation</keyword> (FBI) working on a tip off along with the Thane police busted the racket. It is also informed that Sagar has similar operations in Delhi and <keyword id="53426" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="NCR">NCR</keyword> as well. Sagar has his businesses in <keyword id="6354539" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Dubai">Dubai</keyword> where the 23 year old accused would transfer the money too.

This Mumbai based scam king duped US citizens off Rs 500
crores and gifted his girlfriend an Audi R8

When Adam Aron's phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number in March 2022, he recognized the name of the sender: Mia."Is my memory right that you were into ballet?" Aron replied.The woman on the other end played along: "Yes!" she replied.And so began the text exchange that would quickly turn from flirty to explicit — and within weeks morph into extortion of Aron, who is AMC's CEO.The sender was not actually named Mia. It was Sakoya Blackwood, the mastermind of an elaborate blackmail scheme that would land her in jail. Five months after sending her first text, she was indicted by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, who charged her with extortion and cyberstalking. She pleaded guilty this summer, and earlier this month, Aron confirmed a Semafor report that he was the unnamed CEO in the case.<div type="image" title="sakoya blackwood" height="530" width="526" msid="104752416" hostid="261"></div>It's not Aron's first time in the spotlight. He became something of a household name when, in 2021, he embraced the <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/how-amc-ceo-adam-aron-embraced-the-company-meme-status-2021-6-1030496427">meme-stock craze</a>, taking on a larger-than-life persona that helped AMC's stock surge. He appeared to take advantage of the craze, <a target="_blank" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/amc-ceo-adam-aron-sells-7-million-shares-meme-stocks-2022-1">cashing out shares worth at least $40 million over the course of a few months.</a> The move earned him the title of "villain of the year" by the Hollywood pundit <a target="_blank" href="https://puck.news/hollywoods-villain-of-the-year-is-adam-aron/">Matthew Belloni</a> and drew ire from analysts. (Aron also drew headlines that year for appearing to wear no pants during a Zoom call).Soon, Aron, who did not respond to Insider's request for comment, would fall victim to another sort of villain. Charging documents describe in detail Blackwood's "sophisticated and devious" catfishing scheme against him.Here's how it went down.It all started with that March text. It's unknown how Blackwood got Aron's phone number, but at the time she must have assumed he was wealthy. She'd read about him online and his well-documented selling spree of AMC stock, charging documents said.She was discreet and sent the text from a voice over internet protocol, or VoIP, so it couldn't be traced. A lawyer for Blackwood did not respond to Insider's request for comment.She was also smart, according to a sentencing memo written by her lawyers. She had been a straight-A student at Evander Childs High School in the Bronx, graduating at the top of the class of 2006 and scoring well on her SATs, the memo said. But because of her immigration status — she arrived in the US illegally from Jamaica as a child — she had no options when it came to financing college.So she worked a number of odd jobs — at a day care and as a nanny — all off the books, her lawyers said. But during the pandemic, she tried two new pursuits: day-trading and posing as a minor to try to lure men into seemingly illegal sexual conversations. Blackwood's lawyers said the latter pursuit was a result of unspecified mental and physical abuse against her by someone close to her.This "resentment toward her abusers" may have led her to text Aron — a wealthy, powerful man in the public eye, her lawyers said. (Though the indictment said "there is not a shred of evidence" of Aron having a history of sexual abuse or harassment.)The message could have easily gone unanswered — had it not been for Blackwood's choice of name: Mia.Aron recognized the name, linking her to a ballet dancer who had done "unmentionable things" — in his words, over text — to him just a few years earlier."Send me a naughty picture," Blackwood texted, a couple weeks into their flirty exchange.He complied, sending some photos of himself solo and with another woman. When he asked for photos in return, Blackwood sent him images of an unnamed Russian model that she pulled from Instagram. Aron seemed to either not notice or not care that the woman in the pictures was not his ballerina paramour.Blackwood is no stranger to fake identities, and Mia is one of many she's assumed over the years. Law enforcement found at least five forms of fake identification in her home, including two Arizona driver's licenses, one New York City ID card, one California driver's license, and the badge of a Mount Sinai doctor. The indictment refers to her as Sakoya Blackwood, Koya Blackwood Fews, and, inexplicably, Lila Cohen.In her plot against Aron, she proved herself a master of digital disguise.<div type="image" title="Sakoya Blackwood's fake IDs" height="1070" width="1616" msid="104752418" hostid="261"></div>On April 15, after nearly a month of flirtatious texts with Aron, Blackwood sent Aron a text from another phone number posing as "Brian," the "ex-boyfriend" of "Mia.""Brian" had seen some "incendiary shit" on Mia's phone and was "probably selling the information," Blackwood texted under her new alias, floating the possibility of reaching out to the National Enquirer — a tabloid infamous for shelling out for juicy stories."Ceo scandal is apparently lucrative," Blackwood texted, posing as Brian. She threatened to sell the pictures and spread a false rumor that Aron had been intimate with a minor.By then, Aron realized he'd been caught up in some kind of trouble, and that he'd never actually met Mia. He consulted an attorney. The the next day, Blackwood, posing as Brian, threatened to text AMC board members the illicit photos."Offers are coming in like crazy ppl love a scandal," Blackwood wrote under the guise of Brian.Meanwhile, on a separate line, Blackwood posed as Mia and discouraged Aron from hiring legal help."He could do more damage than you could while getting paid for doing it," she said, referring to Brian.A few days later, Blackwood introduced a third fake identity: the representative of a media agency, who claimed they'd gotten a tip on Aron. It "promised to be damning."That's when Blackwood began to work the phone as all three of her characters and tried to lock down a payout.As the "media contact," she informed Aron that an outlet would be buying the photos for $250,000. As Mia, she suggested Aron inform his family, because Brian was "going for the money.""smart move was u should've been trying to make a deal," she texted, posing as Brian — and added that a bidding war had sent the price of the Aron scoop to $315,000.It was just nine days after Blackwood had first posed as Brian, and Aron's world was in a tailspin. He'd reached out to the FBI, and the story was only getting more bizarre.Under the alias of Mia, Blackwood said she sold her eggs, raising $300,000 to pay off Brian and save Aron. But Brian didn't want to take her money: Aron had to pay, himself, or Brian would go to the media, according to Blackwood's elaborate plot.That same day, she took her scheme to Twitter."I have it on extremely good authority there's a scandal brewing around @CEOAdam he's too busy threatening ppl with his attorney to care abt shareholders. Who do u think will replace him?" she <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/TwoTruth1/status/1520083422957420544">tweeted</a> from the handle TwoTruth1.But the tweets got no traction — and Aron didn't bite. Blackwood didn't stand down. She invented persona No. 4 (five if you count the Twitter account) in June. This time, it was a Vanity Fair reporter."I was shown some images and I was wondering if you're available to speak," the fake reporter texted Aron.By July, when Aron still hadn't paid up, Blackwood sent a text as Brian that said: "A porn site just reached out to me looking for the pics."In the background, law enforcement was tracking down Blackwood. She was arrested at her home in the Bronx on August 21, 2022, and never shared Aron's photos.It was the end of the five-month saga Aron had been living out on his cellphone.The details as laid out in the court documents read like something out of a soap opera: A wealthy man is lured by a fake former fling and falls victim to a blackmail scheme. There's money, sex, deception, and a cast of characters.But while Aron was "suffering from the constant fear that his life would be ruined," according to the filings, he was also continuing his normal Twitter antics — sharing <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/CEOAdam/status/1428907114555187205?s=20">photos</a> of his face imposed on the body of an ape (he's known to his fans, called the apes, as "silverback") and <a target="_blank" href="https://x.com/CEOAdam/status/1389773819313901568?s=20">video</a> of an airplane banner ad reading "AMC to the moon."The case was officially closed in July, when Blackwood was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised release. But the mystery of the CEO at the center of the scandal wasn't revealed until earlier this month, when Aron came clean."Rather than give in to blackmail, I personally engaged counsel and other professional advisors and reported the matter to law enforcement," Aron tweeted. "I did so knowing I risked personal embarrassment. But with my access to resources, if I did not stand up against blackmail, who could?"Aron seemed to be taking a page from Jeff Bezos' book. In 2019, when Bezos was still CEO of Amazon, he outed himself as sending racy texts to his now fiancée Lauren Sanchez — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-national-enquirer-investigation-timeline-2019-2">also known as "alive girl"</a> — before the National Enquirer could."Of course I don't want personal photos published, but I also won't participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks, and corruption," Bezos <a target="_blank" href="https://medium.com/@jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you-mr-pecker-146e3922310f">wrote</a> at the time. "I prefer to stand up, roll this log over, and see what crawls out."Aron hasn't shared how going public with the attempted extortion has affected his personal life — he is, after all, married — but it hasn't been great for AMC. The theater chain's stock had been climbing after the successful release of Taylor Swift's "Eras Tour" film; though the stock dropped 14% when investors found out Aron was tied up in this mess. It's down 42% year over year.In a statement to Semafor, AMC's board said that it "determined it was a personal matter, and considers the issue resolved."Meanwhile, Aron seems unfazed — at least publicly. He's been tweeting out images of trophies and lauding the success of the Swift movie in drawing box-office sales.The real test may be whether or not the apes decide to enact revenge.

AMC's CEO thought he was texting naughty photos to a former ballerina fling. Then everything went haywire.

The <keyword id="55119" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="indian-institute-of-technology" source="Orion">Indian Institute of Technology</keyword>, <keyword id="6357478" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="kanpur" source="Orion">Kanpur</keyword> (IIT-K), will provide an indigenously designed tool to help the <keyword id="6357713" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="uttar-pradesh" source="Orion">Uttar Pradesh</keyword> police in detection and cracking of cases of fraud through cryptocurrency transactions. Professor Sandeep Shukla from <keyword id="6354859" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="iit" source="Orion">IIT</keyword>-Kanpur, said that the tool developed by IIT, known as HOP, can analyse cryptocurrency transactions. "The tool is cheaper than any foreign equipment. By September, our tool will be ready to serve the UP police and help in investigations in cases of <keyword id="6372331" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="cryptocurrency-fraud" source="Orion">cryptocurrency fraud</keyword>," said Shukla. ADG, Cybercrime, Subhash Chandra, emphasised on the need for cybercrime awareness programmes and capacity-building for police departments to prepare to counter the menace. "We have taken action against 37,000 accounts, banks and cards, and also recovered Rs 9.5 crore in a year," said Chandra. SP, Cybercrime, Triveni Singh said that the specific programme is an initiative of MHA and Uttar Pradesh Police and the first such event to spread cyber safety awareness and capacity-building for police departments. He said that basic skills and methodologies are required for investigation of VOIP-based calls that have become prevalent in extortion cases. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/mobile/news/nothing-phone-1-to-launch-in-india-on-july-12/articleshow/92082734.cms">Nothing phone (1) to launch in India on July 12 – here’s everything you need to know about the smartphone</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/around-90-million-users-flocked-to-crypto-bandwagon-in-march-2022-report/articleshow/92081565.cms">Around 90 million users flocked to crypto bandwagon in March 2022: Report</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/cryptocurrency/news/6-of-cryptos-loudest-opponents-that-you-should-know-about-from-dogecoins-co-creator-to-a-star-of-the-oc/articleshow/92091296.cms">6 of crypto's loudest opponents that you should know about, from Dogecoin's co-creator to a star of 'The OC'</a>

IIT Kanpur develops tool to help investigate cryptocurrency fraud

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Celebrities, sports stars, CEOs have never been more at risk of 'sextortion' attacks, lawyers say.</li><li> Sexual encounters lead to threats: pay up, or I'll ruin your career and reputation. </li></ul>A young Manhattan CEO looked at his phone in horror. "I'm going to blow up you and your business," the screen read.It was a woman he'd met on Seeking Arrangements, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/seeking-arrangement-sugar-baby-website-founder-owner-2021-4">so-called sugar-daddy site</a>. She'd told him she was of legal age. Now she was claiming otherwise. The CEO had already parted with some $40,000 in money and gifts, first willingly, and then, after their breakup, in response to her threats.Now she wanted more money, or she'd publish their intimate sexts on his social media accounts and accuse him of statutory rape. And he didn't even know her real name. "If you can't get me money," she texted the terrified CEO, according to records reviewed by Insider, "I'm going to fuck up your whole company." "It's always the same thing: 'Pay me, or I'm going to blow up you, or your marriage, or your business,'" says Jeremy Saland, who specializes in the growing, lucrative, highly-secretive legal field of high-end sextortion defense."It's always, always a crime," says Saland, a former Manhattan prosecutor.Yet the last thing these clients want to do is tell the police. They're panic-stricken at the thought of their name popping up in a lawsuit caption or a gossip-website headline.Be they NBA stars, or Hollywood A-listers, or no-name Manhattan millionaires, all they want, and want desperately, is for the sextortion to quietly stop. They pay tens of thousands of dollars to the lawyers who make that happen."To them, coming to us is like they're handing us a ticking time bomb that they want no one to know about," said Herman Weisberg, a private investigator who's worked these cases with Saland for a dozen years."They think the world is about to end." <h2>East Coast, West Coast</h2>High-end sextortions like the case of that Manhattan CEO, one of Saland and Weisberg's recent clients, are spawning a growing legal practice. Business right now is booming, lawyers who specialize in these cases agree.These are not legitimate, "#MeToo" cases, but rather blackmails based on false accusations. The clients are men almost exclusively, largely based in Los Angeles and New York, with each coast seeing a different pattern of target and attack.LA lawyers say they see more A-listers — entertainment and sports stars — who are threatened with multi-million-dollar bogus lawsuits."These are cases where I send my investigator out, and the accusation is not real — it's a shakedown," typically for seven figures, says LA lawyer Shawn Holley, who sees it as a big win when she can negotiate an out-of-court settlement in the low five-figures.Sometimes the celebrity will want to publicly fight the false accusations, says Holley, a partner at Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump Holley LLP. But managers and agents quickly talk them out of it. The reputational damage, even if the celebrity is eventually proven innocent, is too costly.<div type="image" title="Shawn Holley representing Lindsay Lohan in Los Angeles in 2013." height="3000" width="2133" msid="93092063" hostid="261"></div>"I tell them, 'It's the cost of being you,'" Holley — a member of O.J. Simpson's "Dream Team," whose clients have included Kim Kardashian, Snoop Dogg and Lindsay Lohan — says of the 15 or more celebrity sextortion cases she quietly makes go away each year."There's been a significant increase over the last 20 years, but in the last five or six years it seems to have exploded," says Blair Berk of Tarlow &amp; Berk, PC, another celebrity lawyer out of LA. "Typically it's clear there's been no wrongdoing," says Berk. "It's a clear red flag when part of the extortion is the threat to go to <keyword id="11899820" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="law" source="Orion">law</keyword> enforcement, but they say they've chosen not to."<div type="image" title="Blair Berk in August, 2007, leaving the Malibu Courthouse in Malibu, California after repping client Mel Gibson." height="3000" width="1993" msid="93092065" hostid="261"></div>"The victim is told, 'I'm going to file this in court next week unless you come to the bargaining table," says John B. Harris, of Frankfurt Kurnit Klein &amp; Selz, of the typical LA celebrity shakedown."It gives the well-known person obvious fear" of bad publicity, Harris said, which is why out-of-court settlements often come with non-disclosure restrictions and payment schedules that stretch out over time, to incentivize the sextortionists' continued silence. <h2>It's different in Manhattan</h2>In contrast, Manhattan sextortion clients tend to hail not from the A-list, but from the city's vast pool of the anonymously wealthy. And the sextorters confront their marks directly, without a lawyer at their side waving a draft lawsuit."I see hedge fund managers, private equity partners, big law firm attorneys, high-end physicians, especially those with active social media platforms," says Saland, who estimates he and Weisberg have worked some 200 cases in the last dozen years.Their clients are often Manhattan-based, though the sextorters, both male and female, come from all over."We've handled cases where we've had to track people down in the Philippines," says Saland, "and we found someone in Kenya who was extorting a young kid on Instagram" after tricking the kid into sending nude photos, he adds.The threats can follow an extramarital fling, a bender in Vegas, or a "date" with a sex worker from websites like Ashley Madison or Eros. Sometimes it's after a dalliance, even just online, with someone who is transgender or of the same sex."They're vulnerable, whether it's their closeted sexual preferences, or because of their familial relationships," Weisberg says of the wealthy targets."Sextortion is an ugly term with ugly repercussions," says Stacey Richman, a Bronx-based criminal defense attorney with a national, high-profile clientele."For some, it's a business," she says, especially in the darker corners of the online sex trade."For some, it's a lottery. And the risk of exposure is absolutely terrifying, because in our country, you cannot get your reputation back, really," she adds."You are forever sullied. And it's tragic because it debases true victims."<h2>NFL, NBA players a favorite target</h2>Lawyers on both coasts say they have seen a hike in shakedowns of young athletes, particularly in the NBA and NFL."You have kids that have grown up in wholesome families. They've devoted their lives to their sports. They're not partiers," Richman says."And then they meet some of these people —" Richman divides them into two groups, "predators" and "obsessives" — "and it can be devastating.""They hit the young athletes," says Weisberg. "And they're 21 years old, and they're in a strange city, maybe in New York for the first time. These guys actually are lonely."And somebody on Instagram says, 'Hey, what are you doing after the game tonight?'"Then all of a sudden we've got a young guy calling us saying he's got a wife and babies or a girlfriend who's pregnant who can't find out about whatever happened, either online or in person. And that the team's going to get pissed at him."<h2>Anatomy of a sextortion defense</h2>Every sextortion defense case starts in the same way, Saland, an ex-prosecutor, and Weisberg, a former NYPD detective, told Insider in a recent interview.They talk the client down from a ledge.The CEO whose Seeking Arrangements "date" was now threatening to "blow up" his business? Take a deep breath, Saland says he told the panicking man, as he tells all new clients."They're not going to blow you up," Saland says he assures them. "Because you're the golden goose." "They only have one hand grenade to throw," explains Weisberg of the would-be blackmailer. "And if they throw that," agrees Saland, "that's it. They've lost their money."In the case of the CEO, the woman never gave her real name or address. Saland and Weisberg needed to determine who she was, and that she was indeed of legal age, before agreeing to take the case.The two say they turn down clients who are being extorted over actual criminal behavior such as drug abuse, domestic violence, or sex crimes."There's no judgement," says Weisberg, "as long as our guy is the victim." But in his panic, the CEO, like most clients, had blocked the woman's number and was on the brink of deleting her texts — an evidentiary no-no, Saland and Weisberg say."If there's text messages, give them to me," Saland says. "If there's phone calls, get me the logs. Do not delete. Do not block. That way they're giving us more evidence by sending more threats.""Don't edit," adds Weisberg. "We tell people all the time. You're basically in the doctor's office. If you don't tell us everything, we can't help you. If you don't take your pants off in the doctor's office you're not getting a good exam," he says with a laugh.<div type="image" title="Pictured are attorney and former prosecutor Jeremy Saland, standing, and private investigator Herman Weisberg, a former NYPD detective. Based in Manhattan, the two collaborate in fighting &quot;sextortions&quot; targeting wealthy clients." height="3728" width="4971" msid="93092067" hostid="261"></div>Both Saland and Weisberg fought and won their first big extortion cases while working for the Manhattan DA's office.In 2005, Saland won a three-year prison term for a man who tried to shake down NBA star Carmelo Anthony for $3 million. In 2010, as a DA investigator, Weisberg helped crack the David Letterman blackmail case, in which a television producer threatened to reveal Letterman's extramarital affairs with female staffers.Now, they put that law enforcement experience to work for sextortion victims who pay top dollar, generally between $30,000 and $75,000 per case."Is there a Zelle payment? Is there a PayPal payment? Were there phone messages? Now we have a name. I'm looking for the same evidence I would seek as a prosecutor," says Saland. "It's basically a skip trace," says Weisberg.Each case is different, but generally, the two begin to build a dossier on the sextorter. They gather enough information to turn the tables, sometimes, if the client agrees, by quietly filing a family court petition if a domestic relationship is involved, and often by drafting a lengthy, carefully researched and worded "cease and desist" letter.Both the family court petition and a cease and desist letter will warn the sextorter that an investigation has revealed their accusations to be false, and that their behavior is criminal. "Having an affair isn't illegal," says Weisberg."But, you know what, telling someone 'I'm in front of your house at four in the morning and I'm going to ring your doorbell and tell your wife we're having an affair if you don't pay me,' that's illegal. That's attempted grand larceny." <h2>A surprise visit </h2>In the case of the CEO, Weisberg's investigation, which included records searches and surveillance, eventually determined that the young woman was suffering from drug addiction and living outside Manhattan with a man she called her "manager." "At first I couldn't get to her," Weisberg remembers of the woman, who would communicate only through a hard-to-trace "VoIP," or Voice over Internet Protocol connection.But Weisberg's staff found her, and were hidden outside her apartment one day when she and her manager came outside for a smoke break."So I called her, and I had this video feed on her at the time," Weisberg recalls."And she put the guy she called her 'manager' on the phone. And he was extremely aggressive and chesty with me, saying 'Fuck you! He's going down!' meaning the CEO.""And I was able to tell her, your boyfriend? He should be careful what he carries in that knapsack, because I know there's a lot of weed in there, because he just took it out."Weisberg went on to describe what both of them were wearing —"I said, 'you're wearing a big track suit, with a rainbow thing going up the side, and your boyfriend's got a multi-colored hat with a backpack I saw him take weed out of."Then Weisberg pointed out the police car that happened to be parked, by coincidence, down the block."I just love that moment when she thought I was never going to find her, and there I was, looking at her," Weisberg remembers."She started looking around. And I said, "Yeah, look more to your right. You see that radio car right there?' I wish I could play you the tape, because the changes in their voices were remarkable."Saland's seven-page, single-spaced cease and desist letter — which omitted any identifying details about the client, so it couldn't be "weaponized" against him — rattled the woman and her manager still further."As you read the following, I encourage you to seek counsel, or speak to your father, Mr. [name redacted], to best understand the consequences of your actions," it began. Soon enough, "He ran away with his tail between his legs, and she went back home to her family," out of state, says Weisberg. "I never threaten. Herman would never threaten," Saland says."I just lay out the criminal conduct, and the law that you have violated, and explain that our client is going to exercise his or her rights to the fullest extent of the law, just like with any other crime."You won't find reviews online, Saland says with a laugh. "They never write, 'Thank you for all the help with that extortion.' "But people are incredibly grateful."

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