A South African man has admitted carrying out a cyber-harassment campaign against his neighbors in an attempt to extort money.
Residents of the same quiet street in a Durban suburb that Dharmesh Singh calls home were subjected to weeks of abuse with no idea that the person behind it was their immediate neighbor.
Twenty-three-year-old Singh used unregistered SIM cards to create fake social media profiles from which he sent threatening messages to residents of Battersea Road, Reservoir Hills. He also sent threatening text messages and WhatsApp messages under the alias Sashin Soobramoney.
Some Battersea Road residents, including Singh s own parents, were inconvenienced by the almost constant arrival of e-hailing client pick-up services and food deliveries that they had not ordered in March and April last year.
Durban cyberbully who harassed neighbours convicted in landmark judgment
By Mervyn Naidoo
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Durban - A cyberbully, who put up a fake Facebook profile and tormented and threatened a family for months, was living right next door to them.
His intention was to extort money from an immediate neighbour on a quiet street in a Durban suburb. The cyberbully used an assumed name and sent threatening SMSes, Facebook and WhatsApp messages to pressurise his victim, a father of two young children.
He also harassed his neighbour by arranging constant e-hailing client pick-up services from his home and had food delivered to his door, all under false pretences, during lockdown last year.