LUCKNOW:
Azamgarh Police arrested a man on Friday from Mathura who was engaged in hacking
Facebook accounts and demanding money from victims.
The person arrested was identified as Irfan, a native of
Bharatpur district in Rajasthan. Four other members of his gang are still absconding. He was arrested from Mathura on the basis of surveillance.
In Azamgarh alone, over 70 people including over a dozen cops became victims of the gang.
Police worked the case on the complaint of district social welfare officer
Rajesh Kumar Yadav. Yadav lodged an FIR of being duped of Rs 45,000 by the gang on Facebook.
Explaining the modus-operandi of the gang, superintendent of police, Azamgarh, Triveni Singh said that first
hackers randomly use 10 digit mobile number as login id and
password and roughly out of 10-15 attempts they get success in one or two cases.
After getting access to the account the hackers play with emotions of people and used to send distress messages to everyone in the friend list saying that they are stuck up at a place where they can’t talk but need their help. They will demand a nominal amount of Rs 3,000-20,000 for help. Usually, these hackers convince the victim's friend to deposit the money in Paytm account which is opened using fake documents.
“Soon raids will be conducted in several locations to crack the network. I would also request users to keep a stringent password,” Singh said.