KUALA TERENGGANU, MALAYSIA: A bank officer who paid off a blackmailer who threatened to circulate snoop shots of her found out too late it was not such a good idea after all.

The man, despite being paid the RM500 he wanted, failed to keep his end of the bargain.

Her pictures have been circulated by phone over the picture messaging system for days.

On Sunday, the 45-year-old woman, from Kampung Banggol Tok Jiring here, lodged a report at the district police station here.

According to State CID chief Assistant Commissioner Mohd Fauzi Abduri, the woman was garbed in a revealing piece of cloth when the pictures were taken by the man who is known to her in January.

The man contacted her a few days after that demanding RM1,300 if she did not want the pictures circulated.

Just to be sure the pictures were those of hers, she met him in Jalan Pusara the next day.

He settled for a RM500 one off payment, and the two met the following day in town, where the money and the memory card, in which the pictures were stored, exchanged hands.

To her shock, the woman found out a few days ago that the pictures had been making the rounds.

She then decided to lodge a report.

Mohd Fauzi said police seek a man in his 40's, from Kampung Ladang Sekolah, here, who is believed to be in hiding, to assist in the investigations.

The case is being investigated as extortion.

-New Straits Times