Nude-chat scams rocket amid general fall in crimes

Last year there were 14 times as many scams carried out through nude chats (a total of 68 cases) compared to the previous year, the Judiciary Police (PJ) announced.
Yesterday the police authority announced crime statistics from last year.
It pointed out that in the three years between 2014 and 2016, the number of this type of crime soared. In the briefing, PJ highlighted its effort to prevent such crimes, which numbered in the single digits for several years until last year.
The PJ attributed the reason for this increase to the boost in online interactions, resulting in a significant increase in the sharing of intimate information and fear on the part of the victim that the case would be publicized.
Among the 68 nude-chat scams, nine victims were below the legal age.
In 2020, nearly 40% more blackmail cases were recorded by the authority when compared to 2019, which totaled 90 cases. The rise, according to the police authority, was mainly caused by online nude chats.
In 2020, the PJ conducted investigations on 9,291 criminal cases, of which about 4,000 were reported by members of the public, about 3,300 were instructed by the judiciary or reported by other government bureaus, and 2,000 of which arose from simple investigations.
Last year’s crime statistics show that the PJ concluded nearly 11,500 investigation files and sent about 1,700 suspects to the Public Prosecution Office for further investigation.
The former figure is about three-quarters of that from 2019, while the latter about 40% of the 2019 figure.
The city was generally safer last year as it saw only two homicide cases during the period. There were also two cases of severe physical assault and one abduction. The abduction was later identified by the PJ to be fake, conducted for the sake of scamming.