Influencer with over 50M followers loses ₹50 lakh to cyber fraud. Here’s how

Azim Ahmed, a 28-year-old social media influencer and entrepreneur from Jabalpur, is a popular figure. According to an NDTV report, he lost ₹50 lakh to fraudsters who threatened to “strike” and “ban” his Instagram accounts if he did not comply with their demands.

Ahmed, who has more than 57 million followers across 96 Instagram pages, has filed a complaint with the Jabalpur Cyber Cell. The culprits, however, remain unidentified and at large.

Fearing that he would lose his page, which is now his primary source of income, Ahmed paid the extortionists up to ₹50 lakh repeatedly and, over time.

A software engineer turned digital entrepreneur, Ahmed built his online presence from the ground up. He created his first Instagram page in 2017 as his shot at fame during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2021.

Encouraged by the success, he later co-founded a digital marketing startup, Whoopy Digital, with friends.

But the success has now brought sleepless nights. “For almost a year, I have been receiving fake copyright strikes and threats. They claim my posts are their content and say if I don’t pay, my accounts will be deleted,” Ahmed said.

The threats escalated from online messages to phone calls and even fake emails imitating Instagram’s content moderation system. “They call themselves mediators. A caller from Pune demanded ₹25,000 to ₹30,000 to remove fake strikes,” he said.

According to Jabalpur Cyber Cell in-charge Neeraj Negi, this is the first reported case in the city where fraudsters have extorted money by threatening creators with fabricated content strikes.

“This is a new-age cybercrime trend. Fraudsters are exploiting Instagram’s automated content systems. Once a user receives multiple fake strikes, their account faces suspension,” Negi said.

Negi added that the Cyber Cell has reached out to Instagram’s internal team to trace how these fake bans are being triggered and to identify those behind the extortion racket.