Faridabad: Police bust hacker gang targetting pvt chats of college girls

Faridabad: The cyber team of the Faridabad Police has arrested a gang that allegedly extorted money from college-going girls by first hacking into their WhatsApp group chats and then threatening to leak their private conversations.

Law enforcement officials here have arrested the kingpin of the gang, identified as Manish. As per Faridabad Police, Manish, along with his female friend used to hack the WhatsApp groups of various girls who used to study in either colleges or secondary schools. The police have also arrested two male accomplices who allegedly assisted Manish in carrying out the crime.

Faridabad Police claimed that Manish's gang had managed to extort money from at least 40 girls and women. Manish used to work as a software engineer before he began venturing into criminal activities to make a quick buck.

The Faridabad Police are now probing whether more girls could have been targetted by Manish's gang. Moreover, law enforcement officials are also investigating the fact that the gang might have victimised girls from Gurugram and

Delhi as well. Police said Manish was running this gang for over a year and had upped his ante significantly in the last four months.

"We are right now investigating how many girls were targeted by the gang. As of now, our probe reveals that 40 girls were targetted by the gang. We are trying to find out more details about the case,"

said a senior official from Faridabad Police.

The case has once again stoked the issue of the increasingly rising number of cybercrimes in and around Faridabad, Gurugram and adjoining districts. There has been a massive increase in the number of cyber cases in neighboring Gurugram as well and in a worrying scenario for Gurugram Police, many cybercriminals are using new technology.

Hacking has become one of the major forms of cybercrimes where a large number of complaints have also been registered in Gurugram. There have been cases where hackers have successfully been able to steal data not only from individuals but also from big corporations. Recently a complaint was lodged by a Gurugram firm alleging that hackers had stolen vital information and then demanded Rs 39 lakh to not compromise the said information. The case is still under investigation.

Gurugram Police have registered at least 90 cybercrime cases just in April and May of this year. Not only are their cases of people being duped online but also, there are many cases of online abuse that are being reported. There were also a large number of cases where people were allegedly duped by criminals under the pretext of selling liquor online.