Sambalpur: The police arrested a juvenile cyber criminal from Ramji Temple area here Thursday. He was active on Facebook.
Police said the culprit had opened fake accounts in the name of ministers, MLAs, businessmen and in the names of the collectors of Sambalpur and Sundargarh districts.
After establishing friendship with commoners on Facebook he started demanding things from them using the names mentioned in the fake Facebook accounts.
Police said the accused succeeded in getting money, gold, jewellery, mobile phones and other articles from various people. The people met the demands of the juvenile as they thought that he was a top official.
A special team of the police arrested the juvenile after a complaint was lodged by ex-mayor of Sambalpur Municipal Corporation, Siddharth Saha, SP Sanjeev Arora said at a press conference.
Explaining the minor’s modus operandi, the SP said, “He had opened an account in the name of Siddharth Saha using his photo as profile picture. The juvenile then demanded Rs 1,000 from Krishna Majhi of Burla and asked him to deposit it in a bank account. Similarly, he demanded a mobile phone from Nirmal Bhoi of Budharaja.”
After receiving the complaint, the police set up a special team to contact the criminal. A case (246/19) under Section 419/420 of IPC and Sections 66-C and 66-D of the IT Act was filed at the Town police station.
The special police team found that the juvenile had also opened fake Facebook accounts in the name of Sambalpur Collector Shubham Saxena, Health Minister Naba Kishore Das and Congress MLA Narasingha Mishra.
In January 2019, the Facebook account of BJP leader and MLA Jayanarayan Mishra was hacked and huge donations were collected. Similarly, Rs 2,97,500 was collected for facilitating the granting of permission to open a petrol pump.
Nowadays, many cyber crimes are taking place on social media. The SP emphasised that the public must be aware of this.
PNN
