The Technology Crime Suppression Division has warned lovers not to video-record their sex on Valentine's Day to avoid being blackmailed after the relationship ends.
Pol Col Siriwat Deepor, deputy commander of the division, said on Sunday that lovers often express their passion for one another on Valentine's Day, but they should take precautions – by not recording it on video.
"Lovers may voluntarily record their sexual intercourse. [But] if they break up in the future, men may release the clips online and damage women," he said.
Such cases fall into the category of "sextortion" by those who have pornographic material of others in their possession. Such wrongdoers could be people with close relationships, or strangers who managed to convince others to share their private pictures online, Pol Col Siriwat said.
Such private images could be abused for blackmail – to demand money or sex – as offenders could threaten to post the pictures or videos in public, the deputy commander said.
Sextortion is only one of several categories of crimes linked to love, although it causes the greatest financial and reputational damage, he said.
Another is romance scams, where scammers use profiles of handsome foreigners to develop relationships and finally trick their victims into transferring money to them, he said.
A third kind is a hybrid scams that involve criminals luring women into falling in love with them – and then convincing their victims into "investing" their money before they were realised they were being conned, Pol Col Siriwat said.
Pol Lt Col Nopawan Panya, deputy spokeswoman of the Royal Thai Police Office, said that last month alone 168 romance scams and 235 hybrid scams had been reported. Total damage in the cases was estimated at about 190 million baht.