After a older Conservative admitted giving the personal phone numbers of some acquaintances to an unknown person who had” compromising” material on him, British politicians who may have been targeted in a flirting con were urged to go to police on Friday.
The chair of the Parliamentary Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, William Wragg, claimed to have given the telephone numbers to a person he met on a gay dating apps after sending sensual photos of himself.
Wragg, 36, told The Times that the person had” affecting points” on him and he was “scared” and “manipulated” into giving his associates ‘ amounts to the mysterious person he had met on Grindr.
What William Wragg did is terrible. photograph. twitter.com/dSZXvQ5htk
— Nigel Farage ( @Nigel_Farage ) April 5, 2024
” I gave them some amounts, not all of them”, he said. On an game, I chatted with a man, and we exchanged photos. We were meant to meet up for coffee, but finally did n´t. Then he began requesting information on people’s amounts. I was concerned because he had things on me. He gave me a WhatsApp quantity, which does n´t work today. I´ve harm people by being poor. I was scared. I´m mortified”.
Gareth Davies, the Treasury secretary, pleaded with those impacted to contact the police.
Wragg apologized for the actions he took, but I think it’s obvious that everyone who is aware of the situation he was in reacts in various way, he told Sky News.
The provocateur flirting scam has been referred to as” spear phishing,” a type of cyber-attack that targets particular groups. Scammers use fake identities to be trusted senders to grab sensitive or private information.
Wragg’s discovery came after weeks of debate, stoked by an article published in Politico, that a number of current and former politicians had been contacted by an unknown quantity on WhatsApp, detailing previous meetings with officials, in efforts to acquire private or sensitive data. According to the statement, some of the people targeted were given dressed photos, and at least two others were reported to own responded by sending self-portraits.
” I would suggest to everyone watching this that if you ever feel like you´re in a compromised place, if you ever feel like you´re being blackmailed, next you should go to the authorities immediately because it ´s an extremely serious problem”, Davies added.
After a number of unsolicited emails were sent to a nearby senator last month, Leicestershire Police in northern England has confirmed that it is looking into a record of malignant contacts.
