Man held for hacking model’s social media account, trying to extort ₹1L
MUMBAI: The Versova police recently arrested a man, Chandraprakash Joshi, for allegedly hacking the social media accounts of a former beauty pageant finalist to extort ₹1 lakh from her.
The police traced him to Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh three days ago and interrogated him, after which he was brought to Mumbai.
According to the police, the complainant, Arisha Jain, on November 15 received an e-mail, which stated her Instagram account would be deleted within 24 hours and if she did not want that to happen, to click on a link in the mail.
“She clicked on the link, but nothing happened. She then tried to open her Instagram account, which was blocked. She then tried to access her Facebook and Snapchat accounts that were also blocked, which is when she realised her accounts had been hacked,” said a police officer.
According to the police, the next day she received a Whatsapp message from Joshi, demanding one lakh rupees if she wanted her social media accounts back. When Jain approached the police, they told her to speak to the accused to buy some time.
“I kept speaking to him on Whatsapp to buy time. I was also given a few links by the police to send to him, but he did not click on them. He was traced through his account details that he sent me for transferring the money,” said Jain.