KUALA LUMPUR: Facebook users should be aware of the risks they are taking when they exchange nude photographs of themselves with strangers they befriend online.

This is because they can be blackmailed, warned MCA Public Services and Complaints Department chief Datuk Seri Michael Chong.

Since 2011, Chong has come across 15 such cases where the victims fell for the charms of stunning or handsome strangers – and ended up losing tens of thousands of ringgit.

He said the modus operandi of these blackmailers included indecent video calls where both sides would go “bare naked”.

However, only the victim’s face can clearly be seen in the video.

“Then, the extortion happens. The victims will receive threats that their photos will be revealed to family members and friends if they don’t pay up,” he told reporters at Wisma MCA here yesterday.

Chong noted that all the victims he had received reports from were in their 20s. They comprised seven women and eight men.

He said one victim had already paid RM30,000 before reporting the case to him.

A few of them took the drastic action of packing up and leaving the country to escape the nightmare.

Chong revealed that the latest victim was a 26-year-old man called Tan, who befriended a “Singaporean” beauty on Facebook last month.

He said the woman, who called herself Nathalia Agcadi, had repeatedly asked Tan to communicate with her via video on Skype.

“On May 9, the complainant accepted the video call and she appeared topless. Later on, she showed the lower part of her body,” he said, adding that Tan was wise enough not to return the favour.

Nevertheless, Tan was blackmailed the next day.

Nathalia threatened to upload a naked photo of him and forward it to his girlfriend and family members’ Facebook accounts if he did not transfer RM4,000 to a bank account in Manila, Philippines.

Chong said Tan believed the photo had been doctored, adding that this was also one of the methods employed by the blackmailers.

He advised victims not to pay up and to lodge reports with the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

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