The accused has been identified by the police as Asish Padhi who runs a restaurant in the Silk City.
As per police reports, Asish used to visit a cyber café in Gandhinagar area of the city where he had opened several fake social media accounts from which he had sent objectionable pictures of a lady to her husband.
Sources said, the lady being reportedly blackmailed by Padhi is a model and has a reputation as an established actor and dancer. The accused somehow managed to make friends with her through fake social media accounts and sent her nude pictures to herself and her husband as well.
Briefing the media, Ganjam SP Saravana Vivek M said, “Following a complaint by the lady, our technical wing zeroed in on the accused and nabbed him.”
“He seems to be a habitual offender and has been brought in twice before for similar activities,” said Saravana Vivek.
Padhi even opened fake accounts in the name of his friends and used them to send obscene pictures of the lady. He owns a hotel in Berhampur
Padhi was reportedly put behind bars for two times in the past over the same reason.
As per reports, the racket was active since the introduction of GST by the union government and had been causing massive losses to the state exchequer by availing benefits under the input tax credit system of companies by creating fake accounts.
Though the losses caused by the racket to the state exchequer have not been estimated by the Intelligence wing, preliminary investigations revealed that it could run into a few crores of rupees, informed sources.
Earlier in August, the intelligence wing had conducted raids at different places in Bhubaneswar and outside & traced evidences pointing at the fraud.
Meanwhile, one person has been detained in connection with the fraud while search is on to nab other involved persons.
As per the actress, an unidentified person using a fake Facebook account in her name had been seeking monetary help from people citing that she is in trouble after moving to Bengaluru.
In her latest Facebook post, the actress has posted the chat details between the fraudster operating the fake account and another person who came forward to help the actress. Anubha said the matter came to light after the person mailed her seeking her account number.
Saying that the incident would tarnish her image, the actress urged people not to trust anyone or share any information or lend monetary help by trusting such fraudsters through internet.
“If any account asks you for any kind of help first confirm it in person and don't trust strangers even if they are public faces,” she stated in her post.
Anubha also said that she had earlier informed the Cyber Crime Cell regarding the issue following which many fake accounts in her name were blocked.
This apart, the actress has also mentioned her original Facebook, Instagram and twitter account details on her post for reference of the public.
Celebrities falling prey to online fraudulence is not new in Odisha. Earlier, Ollywood actor Babusan also got into trouble after a woman from Sundergarh alleged that a Facebook account in his name had sought donation of Rs 50,000 from her for treatment of his father. Later, police arrested a person in this connection following investigation.
As per sources, the youth has been identified as Subasis Routray from a village under Jalalpur police limits of Niali in Cuttack.
"The youth was continuously blackmailing his ex-lover and then opened a fake Facebook account and uploaded few obscene pictures to take revenge," said a police official.
A case has been registered against Routray under Sections 465, 569, 500, 509, 354D, 506 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with 66c of IT Act and he has been forwarded to judicial custody, added the official.
In a similar incident last month, the Commissionerate Police had arrested a youth from Jharkhand for defaming and allegedly circulating obscene pictures of a 20-year-old girl from Laxmisagar area on social media.
The accused Amit Jaiswal, who earlier used to work in a courier service company in Bhubaneswar, was in a relationship with the girl for a couple of years. However, as the girl’s family was against their relationship, Amit uploaded few obscene pictures on Facebook by creating a fake account.
The game on Facebook is different from other social media platforms as several Pages, Groups and accounts have been renamed to push the election agenda as the requirements from the political quarters soar.
According to social media experts, renaming the Facebook Pages or Groups to promote political campaigns and influence voters has become common and the Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven algorithms are not sufficient to handle such a huge volume in a country where Facebook has over 30 crore users and WhatsApp another 30 crore monthly.
"There are over 200 fake Facebook Groups and Pages with more than one lakh followers which are currently influencing the group members and followers with biased political content," leading social media expert Anoop Mishra told IANS.
There are fake profile Pages created by fans of journalists like Ravish Kumar ("I Support Ravish Kumar" with over 18 lakh followers) and Punya Prasun Bajpai ("Prasoon Vajpaaye Fans" with over 10 lakh followers) being used to push a political agenda.
There are several such examples where people who joined Facebook renamed their Pages, Groups and accounts later, only to use it for spreading their political agenda in the election season.
Despite Facebook's efforts, such misinformation is thriving and is only going to reach mammoth levels as the first phase of voting begins from April 11.
"For the social media players, India is a huge market and they want to grow... On the other hand, they have consistently failed to stop the spread of fake news and propaganda on their platforms," Pavan Duggal, the nation's leading cyber law expert, told IANS.
The pressure on social media platforms is enormous with the Indian government now formulating new IT guidelines where they have to remove within 24 hours any unlawful content that can affect the "sovereignty and integrity of India".
Facebook-owned WhatsApp is another fake news factory where more than 87,000 groups are targeting millions with political messaging.
"From fake statistics related to various government policies to news promoting regional violence, manipulated political news, government scams, historical myths, propaganda to patriotism and Hindu nationalism -- WhatsApp has it all in the election season," Mishra had said earlier.
The failure to stem fake news is evident from the recent statements from CEO mark Zuckerberg. In an interview with RTE News on Tuesday, he said Facebook cannot yet guarantee that it can stop foreign actors that are trying to interfere in the upcoming European Parliament elections in May.
Facebook first came under the scanner of policymakers around the world after allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections surfaced.
In India, Facebook has hit on several fake Pages and accounts linked to Congress as well as the BJP but the task at hand is humongous.
On the social media platform, "some of the Pages and Groups with massive followings are directly in touch with the IT cells of the political parties", claimed Mishra.
The purpose, he added, is to connect and influence the voters with their half-baked and misleading content.