New Delhi, May 4 A 15-year-old youth was arrested from Uttar Pradesh's Mathura for allegedly creating fake WhatsApp accounts of people and contacting their relatives demanding money on the pretext of hospital emergency, a Delhi Police official said on Thursday.
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Shahdara, Rohit Meena said that on April 22, a complaint was received from Nitin Kumar Mittal, a resident of Krishna Nagar, wherein he alleged that his WhatsApp account was hacked and someone was demanding money from his relatives and friends by using his identity and photos.
In his complaint, Mittal said that the hacker told his relatives that he was in urgent need of money for hospital admission and would return the money after two days.
"One of the complainant's relatives Jashandeep Singh even transferred Rs 80,000 to the fraudster," said the DCP.
During investigation, the police team tasked with the probe collected all the relevant information including call details record and Whatsapp chat.
"All the bank details and its registered mobile number were also analysed and through technical evidences, a raid was conducted at village Mandora in district Mathura from where the teenager was nabbed," he said.
Police also recovered two mobile phones from his possession which were used for commission of crime.
Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, the official said that the teenager used to gather information from Facebook or other social media accounts randomly which are visible to everyone.
"Thereafter, he entered the mobile number of the victim in place of gmail ID and also entered the mobile number in place of password. If the mobile number and password of that Google account is the same, then, he got the contact list of that person from the Google account," said the official.
He then used to create a fake Whatsapp account of the victim, using photographs which he got from social media accounts.
"Thereafter, he used to contact the close relatives of the victim and demanded money on the pretext of hospital emergency. He used to get the details of victim close relatives from social media accounts or from the contact list accessed through Google account," the official added.
The official said that further investigation is underway to unearth the previous incidents with similar modus operandi and previous victims are being contacted on the basis of call detail record and WhatsApp Chats.
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